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THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 



THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

AN ESSAY ON AMERICAN IDEALISM 



BY 

GUSTA\ E RODRIGUES 

TRANSLATED BY 

LOUISE SEYMOUR HOUGHTON 



WITH AN mTRODUCTION BY 

J. MARK BALDWIN 

COBBE8PONDIHO MEMBER OF THE FRENCH IN8TITCTK 



AND A PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION BY 
THE AUTHOR 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1918 



CorrmioBT. 1918. bt 
CHARLES SCRIBNERS SONS 



Published October. 1918 



OCT 3: I9i8 




/■So 



PREFACE TO THE 
AMERICAN EDITION 

I SHALL not try to conceal the pleasure it 
gives me to see my book, The People of Action, 
published in the United States and introduced 
to the acquaintance of the American people 
by the house of Scribner. At the moment 
when our two great democracies, with all their 
strengths united, are fighting for a peace of 
justice and for the independence of the world, 
I confess to feeling some pride in the thought 
that my modest effort for strengthening the 
bonds which join us has been thought worthy 
of so great an honor. 

If my book has no other merit, it possesses 
that of entire sincerity. Along with eulogies 
which I have not tried either to minimize or 
to exaggerate, it contains some reservations, 
even some criticisms, which I have no wish to 
weaken. I have sought to show my fellow 
countrymen the American as I have seen him, 
witli his qualities of energy, audacity, gener- 
osity; but also with his faults — or rather the 
things which I have seemed to find defective in 



vi PREFACE 

liim — his extreme impulsiveness, his somewhat 
narrow views, his still incomplete culture. 

Such as he is, he has seemed to me very great, 
and to have grown even greater by the part 
that he has just taken in the view of history. 
The events whicli have happened since the 
publication of my book in France have con- 
firmed me in this belief. 

American intervention, which was then hardly 
more than a promise, has (level()j)ed to-day with 
a strength that could hardly be imagined. 
^^^lat seemed to be impossible has been realized. 
The provision made for it has surpassed expec- 
tation and beaten all records. In January, 
1918, there were only a few thousands of Ameri- 
can soldiers on our soil; to-day we may esti- 
mate 1,300,000, perhaps 1,500,000. The tide 
flows on unceasingly, with a regularity that is 
impressive, formidable. In the vigorous words 
of President AVilson, the hour cannot be long 
delayed when the forces of liberty will be every- 
where overwhelming the forces of slaver^', and 
when it will at last be possible for man to live 
truly and fully in a pacified and regenerated 
world. 

And of this peaceful regeneration the United 
States will have been, not of course the sole 
agents, but among the chief constructors. They 



PREFACE vii 

will have had the advantage over old and di- 
vided Europe of being a young people, a united 
federation, and even now in a concrete form a 
first League of Nations. 

Thus for all their Allies they are at the same 
time a model to follow and, it must be con- 
fessed, a riddle to solve. They do not come 
into the conflict with that old mentality ad- 
justed to war which we bring to it, all of us, 
in a greater or less degree; for they have not 
behind them eight or ten centuries of battling 
against foreign peoples. War, well as they 
make it — and we know how fervently — is for 
them in some degree a word without meaning, 
for war presupposes conquest, and they recog- 
nize nothing but voluntary agreement; peoples 
are not for them a kind of cattle to be bartered 
or stolen by the right of the strongest; they are 
autonomous beings, masters of their own des- 
tinies. War makes sacred the rule of fact in 
all its original brutality — the human, or rather 
the inhuman, beast unchained to gratify his 
lowest appetites; and the United States pro- 
claims the rule of law, the judicial state perma- 
nently and definitely established between equals, 
respect alike for the individual personality and 
the collective personality. 

Yes, the American nation, which is still in 



viii rU KIACE 

the making, which is still seeking to find itself, 
but whicli in tliis j)resent struggle ivill find it- 
self onee for all, is among all peoples the peaee- 
ful nation, the one whieh owes to the achieve- 
ments of peace both its unprecedented pros- 
perity and its purely democratic institutions. 
It is, if I nuiy say so, peace made a nation, 
as its President, Mr. Wilson, is peace made 
man. 

And it is from this that tlie intervention of 
the United States in the World War derives its 
full meaning. To German im])erialism, to that 
final return to their ancestral barbarism which 
we thought we could look ui)on as definitely 
checked by civilization, the I'nited States in- 
flexibly opposes the great dam of its men, its 
armament, and its gold. It says to this devil- 
ish force: Thou shalt go no furtluT. It is forc- 
ing it back, and forever, into the darkness of 
the Middle Ages from which by an incompre- 
hensible anachronism it burst forth to lay 
waste the world. 

"This does not belong to our day," M. 
Clemenceau, now Premier of France, wrote in 
an article in L'Uommc Libre just after the war 
broke out. "This does not belong to our day," 
repeated after him Mr. Wilson, and with its 
President spoke the whole American L'nion; 



PREFACE ix 

and it Is "our day" that has just brought into 
being the young American army, the army of 
Hberty, to drive back the day of the past, the 
day of mediaeval slavery. 

This army has but just entered the fight, 
where it has shown to a wondering world and 
an astounded Germany of what achievement 
it is capable. Against professional soldiers, 
against veterans trained in all the devices of 
war, it has tested the strength of its young 
volunteers — perhaps still somewhat inexperi- 
enced but fighting for an ideal and not for a 
master. In conjunction with the other Allied 
] combatants it has checked at its first blow the 

' German force, and to-morrow it will shatter it. 

I 

, But if the militarv effort of the United States 
^ has been bej'ond compare, it has its double in 
a civil effort which is not less so. The popula- 
tion of this country, which overflows with riches, 
I where harvests and provisions are spread broad- 
I cast in their abundance, has voluntarily im- 
posed upon itself the severest privations. It 
, has stinted itself of bread in order to feed 
those nations beyond the Atlantic which the 
I submarine blockade was trying to starve. It 
, has experienced, more than France and very 
j largely for the sake of France, crises in coal and 



X PREFACE 

other necessary products; it has accepted very 
severe restrictions, not merely patiently but 
joyously, with a smile upon its lips. 

Toward our country' especially it has shown 
an admirable devotion, and I may add delicacy. 
It has given in profusion, as is its custom, and 
in giving it has taken the attitude not of <i 
benefactor })ut of one fulfilling an obligation. 
The American Red Cross, the Rockefeller mis- 
sion, the Young Men's and the Young Women's 
Christian Associations — to mention only the 
most important among its charitable institu- 
tions — have all rivalled one another in gener- 
osity, ingenuity, and industry. The American 
has one virtue and a rare one — he remembers 
services that have been done him; he is never 
ungrateful. "We of the United States are a 
grateful nation," said (icneral Allaire, provost 
marshal of the American forces in France. 
"Lafayette and Rochambeau are names that 
an American speaks with reverence and atlec- 
tion, are heroes whose memory he cherishes in 
his heart. And, as liis fashion is, he is bringing 
back to you a hundredfold that which he re- 
ceived from you." 

However, at the same time that the Ameri- 
can gives, he asks; and what he asks above all 
from France is an intellectual and moral collab- 



PREFACE xi 

oration and continuous exchange of opinions, 
ideas, and sentiments. 

From this springs the daily and hourly co- 
operation that exists everywhere and in all 
fields of action. Examples are the "Foyers du 
Soldat," where the Young Men's Christian As- 
sociation joins its endeavors to those of our 
French citizens and of our high command in 
placing its immense resources at the service of 
the troops. Such also is the "Foyer des AUiees," 
which the young women of the Y. W. C. A. have 
established for our employees and ammunition 
workers, with the intimate and constant sup- 
port of some devoted Frenchwomen and of some 
leaders of industry. A further instance is the 
"College des Etats-Unis," which a Franco- 
American committee, made up of intellectual 
leaders of the two countries, is establishing in 
Paris, and which is proposing as the first point 
of its active programme the concerted study of 
progress made in war surgery, in war medicine, 
in war radiology. Still another is the ceaseless 
activity of the American Chamber of Com- 
merce in Paris, which, under the urgent leader- 
ship of its president, Mr. Walter Berry, is 
exerting itself to bring about in the future fol- 
lowing the war the closest and most productive 
commercial relations between the two countries. 



xii PREFACE 

Yes, that wliich America asks of France 
above all else is the means of ohli^'ing her, the 
most certain and most efi'ective methods of 
making her "greater than ever," to quote once 
more from General Allaire. 

She expects also that wliicli we are ahle to 
give her and which we shall bring to her joy- 
fully — I mean the ''culture dc F esprit,'' that 
refinement of thought which has always been 
an attribute of the French race. To replace 
the German teachers in her universities, she 
appeals to ours. Young and still without pre- 
tension, she believes that she can get at our 
school that which .she lacks, and that to make 
the complete man .she can add to her qualities 
of action and of matter-of-factne.ss the charm 
and, as it were, the perfume of French culture. 

Thus there is everything to expect and 
everything to hope not only for the two na- 
tions but for all civilization from a Franco- 
American rapprochement — and even more from 
a Franco-American intinuicy. This rapproche- 
ment and this intinuicy come about by the very 
nature of things, and tlicy will become every 
day more real. They arouse on all hands, be- 
sides efforts at practical realization, other at- 
tempts at propaganda of which my book is 
only a very inconsiderable sample. The future. 



PREFACE xiii 

we may be sure, belongs to a great union of free 
peoples, and at the head of this union we may 
look to see especially the two great peoples 
which, one in the Old World and one in the 
New, have been the unquestioned champions 
of the rights of man and of the rights of nations. 
This is what I desire to say to our American 
friends. 

GUSTAVE RODRIGUES. 
Paris, August 15, 1918. 



CONTENTS 



Introduction bt J. Mark Baldwin xxiii 

Preface to the French Edition xliii 

CHAPTER I 

AJVIERICA AND THE CONDITIONS OF ITS 
EXISTENCE 

Prejudice Against the United States. — American 

Realism and Idealism 3 

I. HISTORIC CONDITIONS 

The United States have no historic past. — Their free- 
dom from national hatred 5 

Colonial origins. — Subordination and elimination of 

the indigenous element 8 

Immigration and the juxtaposition of races. — No Eng- 
I lish hegemony. — America not Anglo-Saxon . . 11 

American patriotism. — Federalism and particularism. 
' — The "faculty of absorption" of the United 
( States. — The American patrie in process of be- 
coming 16 

II. POLITICAL CONDITIONS 

The United States have no political past. — The origi- 
nal democracy and autonomy. — Ignorance of 
autocracy and centralization 20 

III. ECONO]VnC CONDITIONS 

The United States have no economic past. — America 
was born contemporaneously with science. — Ra- 
tional and not empirical character of American 
production. — Agriculture. — Commerce. — Indus- 
try 26 



xvi CONTKXTS 



rA<ir 



The United States the lurid of the new arul <if in- 
vention. — American pluralism. — American activ- 
ity 28 



CHAPTER II 

THE INDIVIDUAL IDEAL 

The American an Individuaust, but Not Individ- 
ualized; Will Rather than Intelugence ... 38 

I. WEALTH 

The American a "money-maker." — Contempt of 
"ready-made" wealth, dowry, iidieritanre. — 
Money the criterium of personal worth ... 40 

Money not an ohjevt of rnjnt/mrnt, hut a manifestation 

of power. — Daring of American capital ... 43 

The idealization of wealth. — Its moral action. — Its 

creative power. — Non-existence of the idle rich . 48 

American philanthropy. — Its utilitarian character. — 
Disinteresl<'dne.ss of the very rich. — Voluntary 
self-impoverishment. — "It i.s a disgrace to die 
rich" 50 

II. LIBERTY 

The American meaning of lil)erty; emancipation and 

fullest realization of the individual .... 53 

1. Independence : .\meriea an "open field" for all ac- 

tivities 54 

2. Force: power of expansion; struggle with des- 

tiny oG 

3. Will: formation of character, effort; .\meriea the 

land of "liard workers" 58 

4. Well-hcing : moral discipline and fre«xlom of the 

will (5^ 



CONTENTS xvii 

in. EDUCATION 

FAOE 

Its virile character. — It admits of risk 66 

Respect for the child's liberty. — Moral equality of 

parents and children 68 

The American educational system. — Its practical 
character. — Culture sacrificed to utility. — Ameri- 
can science. — Little theory, but results ... 73 

IV. THE MAN 

A poor man who aspires to be rich. — His energy. — 

His faculty of adaptation to any task ... 78 

The "business man." — The strenuous life. — The sense 

of opportunity. — Self-confidence 82 

Incomplete but powerful life of the American. — The 

mysticism of activity 85 

V. THE WOMAN 

Equality of sexes. — Co-education. — Physical life and 

"culture" 89 

Marriage. — Independence of the married woman. — 

Frequency of divorce. — Every woman a feminist 93 

VI. THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 

The danger of anarchy. — Its remedies: Personality 

and Morality 99 

1. Personality: the power of the individual; elimi- 

nation of the weak; America the country of vic- 
tors 102 

2. Morality: Puritanism and Protestant discipline; 

personal religion; the sentiment of justice; alli- 
ance of duty and interest; idealization of self- 
interest; its natural prolongation into altru- 
ism 103 

The individual ideal. — The new human type. — Emer- 
son's "reforming man" 117 



xviii CONTENTS 

CHAPTER III 

THE NATIONAL IDEAL 

I. THE STATE 

PAoa 
America "a nation of individuals." — Contrast be- 
tween European nalionalisni and American indi- 
vidualism. — There is no American nation 122 

Weakness of political life. — Power of public opinion. 

— American democracy 123 

II. THE DECL.\RATION OF RIGHTS 

The Unite<l States were l>orn of Ripht and not of Fact. 
— Individual rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit 
of happiness 131 

National rights. — Independence and moral personal- 
ity. — "Righteous insurrection" 135 

Rejection of the "strong government." — The United 

States a government of men 138 

III. THE UNION 

Heterogeneous character of the United States. — They 
form a union, but not a unit. — Autonomy and 
equality of the various states 142 

Possible conflicts between states and union. — Flex- 
ibility of the unified organization 146 

IV. THE PRESIDENT 

He symbolizes the Union. — His powers. — His moral 

strength: he is the conscience of the United States lol 

His judicial and arbitral character.— He holds his 

power only from the people 153 

V. THE L.\W 

Pre-eminence of the judicial power. — Tlie Supreme 

Court the giiardian of the Constitution 158 



CONTENTS xix 



Unity of legal orientation. — Every functionary is 
a judge giving sentence in accordance with the 
Constitution.'— The States "centrifugal forces," 
and the Constitution the "centripetal force" . 161 

Justice and legality the bases of the American nation. 

— "Honesty is the best policy" 167 

The unity of America and "the Indestructibility of 

the Union" 170 



CHAPTER IV 
THE INTERNATIONAL IDEAL 

I. AMERICAN INTERNATIONALISM 

America an Intcrnation. — Contrast between the dis- 
united states of Europe and the United States of 
America. — Rejection of the sj'stem of alliances 
and the politics of conquest 173 

The Americanization of the United States. — Tendency 
toward the conception and accomplishment of 
international duty 180 

The Monroe Doctrine and American isolation . . 184 

n. THE ARMY AND WAR 

American pacifism. — Non-existence of a standing 

army 187 

The American militia. — "Volunteers of Liberty." — 
Their military and their civil values. — The Ameri- 
can army an army of itidivixluals 190 

War and peace. — War is cowardly, peace is courageous 194 

Refusal of wars of conquest. — All American wars have 

been wars of independence 196 



XX CONTEXTS 

ra. UNHTRSAL PEACE AND THE "SOCIETY 

OF NATIONS" 

rAoa 

The nations ronsidfn**! as mnral prritons. — Atitocra- 
ries ami <l«"ni(Krari<'s. — The (irrman Empire and 
its allies "enemies of humanity" 202 

Intervention of America in the World War.— She rep- 
res«*nt.s the "future t)f humanity." — Emerson's 
"Dtxiaration of Human Duties" 207 

President Wil.son's |)oliey.^ — 1. The in.stallation of 
Right — Peaee "witJiout annexations and indem- 
nities," but with "readjustment.s" and "repara- 
tions." — i. The "Society of Nations." — Inter- 
national justice and world union 213 

The Unite<l States and "international duty." — The 
world made free. — The American ideal and the 
French ideal 225 



CHAI^ER V 

AMERICAN IDE.VLISM 

Idealism and Reausm. — Is There an American Ideal- 
ism? 229 

I. AMERICAN IDEALISM 

There is no American idealism. — The meagreness of 

American life 229 

Philosophical empiricism. — Utilitarian religion. — Im- 
itative art. — Lack of sentimental comprehen- 
sion. — The morals of self-interest 23S 

II. AMERICAN IDEALISM 

There is an .\merican idealism. — Idealism of action. 

not of thought 237 

Philosophy of life and of creation. — Religion of hu- 
manity and salvation by effort. — Militant art. — 



CONTENTS xxi 

PAOE 

Strong sensibility against weak sensibility. — The 
morals of will and of work 240 

Fundamental tendency: to "free energies" in order to 

"liberate values" 244 

Conclusion: the practical ideal of actuality substi- 
tuted for the intellectual ideal of culture . . 249 



INTRODUCTION 

I CONSIDER it a privilege to write an intro- 
duction to this book. I see in it the means of 
bringing to Hght a sort of collaboration which, 
in addition to so many others, will contribute 
a httle to tighten the bonds of the Franco- 
American entente. 

I also find in it a pleasure, for I deem this 
book to be one of great interest and real value, 
especially at this time when Frenchmen and 
Americans are looking one another squarely in 
the eye, and asking one another: "Who are 
you? What may I expect of you?" M. 
Rodrigues here tells his fellow^ countrymen what 
the American is, and what the Frenchmen may 
expect to receive from him. 

What, then, is the American ? 

The author replies, as others have done be- 
fore him, though with less precision, and in a 
less concise form: "What is the American? 
This is what he is: In temperament, a man of 
I action, of efficiency; in the matter of culture, 
a novice; in theory and practice — so far as he 
has any — an individualist; in tendency and 



xxiv INTRODUCTION 

purpose, whether individual or national, an 
unconscious idealist." 

On all these points I agree with the author, 
and he sums up his just conclusions in a truly 
masterly way. The only reservations which I 
shall have to make, whatever their importance 
may be, bear only upon details, upon examples 
and facts cited, upon toning down certain too 
energetic statements, but not upon their funda- 
mental significance. 

In every case when we penetrate to the ideal 
we are confronted with a question; when we 
consider the Americans taken as a whole, we 
have to ask ourselves: What is precisely the 
sort of individualism that they present to-day 
(rather than in the time of Emerson, or before 
the war of 18G1-5), and what is precisely the 
type of idealism toward which they are tending ? 
In each of these directions we find something 
specifically American, for at both view-points 
the American is the product of a particular 
growth, due to particular conditions of existence 
so well described by M. Ilodrigues in his first 
chapter. 

First of all, as regards American individual- 
ism, it is little developed in precisely those 
domains in which that of the Frenchman has 



INTRODUCTION xxv 

made the most advance: in moral, social, and 
aesthetic subjects. Without doubt, when the 
American drew up his political constitution he 
laid claim, at first for himself, and later for his 
slaves, to the individual rights of the citizen 
carried to their extreme consequences; without 
doubt he has developed industry and commerce 
by means of an individual competition which 
has shown itself harsh and pitiless; without 
doubt he demands for every one, and he grants 
to every one, liberty and equality of condition 
in matters of education, commerce, and indus- 
try. On all these points his individualism is 
only too evident. In morals he was content in 
the beginning to adopt integrally the puritan 
and evangelical models of Great Britain. In his 
attitude toward law he has unceasingly shown 
the docility and simplicity of the colonist, held 
to submit himself to an absolute constabulary 
authority; and as to his sentiments, while propa- 
gating the precepts of a narrow religious aus- 
terity, he has merely exaggerated the sanctions 
attached to public opinion and local prejudices. 
In everything that concerns social responsibility 
and moral conduct the American is a blind col- 
|lectivist, excessively scrupulous and intolerant, 
and with that a religious absolutist. 

Strangely enough, instead of judging his re- 



xxvi ixTuonrcTiox 

ligion by his morality, he does precisely the op- 
posite. To the AiiUTican in general the sanc- 
tions of morality are almost exclusively reli^jioiis; 
he seeks them in the ipse dixit of Holy Scripture. 
Thus one of the most solid ramparts of the 
South in the Civil War was the support which 
Bible texts afforded to ministers in justifica- 
tion of the institution of slavery.^ There is a 
current adage: "Morality without religion is 
vain." * In matters of art these factors are 
still complicated with coarseness of taste due 
to a lack of education. 

In the eyes of the American this "collec- 
tivism" and "legalism" admit of no exception, 
any more than they allow of personal favors, ex- 
cept in the domain of business obligations. The 
principle has remained true to the present time 
for the great captains of industry and the mag- 
nates of commerce; in business necessity knows 
no law, and force creates right. But at the 
same time these very men have vigorously held 
to the text, "Avoid every appearance of evil," 
and personally yielded with the most scrupulous 
punctuality to all the rigors of moral and re- 

' The chastity expected of young men. of which M. Rodrigues speaks, 
is based upon religion; ever)' sexual connection outside of cxinjugal 
relations Ls pr»>hihite<l as being tainted with sin. 

' When apj)earing to suggest that the contrar)' Ls true in the United 
States, I think that M. U«Hlrigues overestimates the importance of the 
Dun-religious pjirt of the |H>pulation. 



INTRODUCTION xxvii 

ligious conformity. To play dominoes, attend 
a concert, go into the country for pleasure on 
a Sunday, was to expose oneself to public op- 
probrium, as many persons over twenty years 
of age may perfectly recall to mind, and even 
many who have not yet reached that age. In 
certain of the largest denominations, whose 
numerous members may be found ahnost every- 
where, to dance, play cards or the lottery, 
drink wine or beer, are acts which, without 
always being the object of official reprobation, 
are none the less condemned by imperious 
public opinion as things "of this world," and 
*'irrehgious." 

In this regard the nation is still Anglo-Saxon. 
The country was subjected to the imprint of 
that rigidity of moral judgment and "legalism" 
of social sanctions of which British tradition 
affords the most striking examples. Puritan 
models reign supreme in art, literature, the 
theatre, and daily life.^ 

This tendency to "legalism," to the search 
in legal statutes for a universal panacea for all 
ills and abuses, even at the price of the sacrifice 

' Though it may be true that sls to temperament the American may 
not be more Anglo-Saxon than French (M. Rodrigues says that he is 
less so, p. 14), when we consider the scx-iiil factors of the national cul- 
ture — moral beliefs, religious faith, language, law-traditions, practices — 
we must maintain that Ameri<'an life, even to-day, is much more closely 
related to that of the Anglo-Saxons. 



xxviii IXTRODrCTION 

of individual ri<,dits and privileges, no doubt 
comes in the first place from British tradition; 
but it has been reinf(jrced l)y two specific influ- 
ences: first, the conditions under which Ameri- 
can institutions were developed, and next, the 
political duahty of allegiance of the American 
citizen. 

The early colonial settlements insisted, at 
first in the Eastern States, and later in those of 
the centre and in the "Far West," upon the 
vigorous maintenance of rules already rigorous 
in themselves, and at the same time the relin- 
quishment of individual liberties in the face of 
the exigencies of internal order and collective 
defense. Justice was rendered with an iron 
hand, for the individual did not count when 
the good of the community was in danger. 

Later, in view of the great independence of 
the several States with respect to the national 
government (an independence emphasized by 
M. Rodrigues), the individual found himself 
plunged into all sorts of uncertainties and am- 
biguities on the subject of his rights and duties. 
He ran up against the laws on all sides, laws 
often themselves conflicting, one overriding the 
other, and very frequently inapj)licable.* The 

' It is difficult for me to a^jrtM" with M. RiMlrifTut-s when he seems to 
say (p. 147) that confliet-s Jx-twivn State and national (fovernmenta 
have never led to uo appeal to force. The Civil War of 1861-5 is 



INTRODUCTION xxix 

result is that the law, the legal statute, becomes 
an instrument of reform, of repression, of prog- 
ress. The American demands that a law be 
voted, and imagines that he has done his whole 
duty. Now as this complex of laws, State and 
national, is subject to the influence of a puri- 
tanistic, and often injudicious, morality, one 
may easily imagine the confusion that results. 

Each State seeks to surpass the other States, 
to show itself more "Christian," less "cove- 
nanting with evil," to appear more "progres- 
sive" than its neighbors. National legislators 
are urged to be not less "advanced," with the 
fine result that most ill-prepared and least-con- 
sidered measures are proposed in Congress and 
often passed, at the risk of being abrogated by 
the Supreme Court as unconstitutional. 

In the past few years this kind of legislation 
has entered the industrial domain — that in 
which, it must be admitted, the need of reform 
has been most keenly felt — and in certain cases 
has paralyzed the active factors of the economic 
life of the country. The "muck-rakers" have 

precisely the result of such a conflict — a conflict between the rights of 
States (right to secession) and of the Federal Union. It was settled by 
arms. Other menacing situations have arisen from conflicts of juris- 
diction: for example, the right of the Japanese in California to attend 
the public schools of that SUite by virtue of a national treaty; the right 
of the national government to maintain order by force in a particular 
State; the right of extradition; the regulation of commerce between 
the States, etc. 



XXX IXTRODICTION 

scented abuses everywhere, and the State legis- 
lators made every effort to outrun one another 
in a headlong race toward a so-called "regu- 
lation" of great enterprises. The "trusts," 
whetluT good, bad, or indifferent, have ])ccn 
prosecuted; the railways have been shackled 
and oppressed by arbitrary measures, such as the 
fixing of tariffs, the limitation of combinations 
iJiter sCy and the prohibition of certain forms of 
investment, until at last a real crisis has para- 
lyzed the business of transportation. Prepara- 
tions for the present war are paying the price of 
all this "virtuous" legislation^ to which the in- 
dustry of yesterday and the day before has been 
subjected. 

It is, therefore, not only in the social and 
moral life of the United States that individual- 
ism is little developed. The fresh and vigorous 
power of initiative, so justly pointed out by M. 
Ilodrigues, has also been enfeebled by the ener- 
vating and sterilizing fever of moralization of 

' Amonp examples of this ill-considered legislation are: the " Beverid^e 
child lnlM)r law, " the "Mann law" on the white-slave traffic, the vari- 
ous extreme measures taken in the interest of prohibition or in Ijehalf 
of feminism. The two great political parties outvie <ine another in 
sufjpestions more advance*! than those of the "Progressive" party itself. 
The "initiative," the "n-ferendum," the "n-call of judges" are projHisal.s 
of this sort. As M. Uo<Jrigues point.s out, there is no country in the 
world where such mea.sures are less to l>e desin-d. The country needs a 
really conservative party, as a makeweight against all this governmental 
interference, whether State or national, in private aflairs and social 
life. 



INTRODUCTION xxxi 

the country through the great increase of legis- 
lative measures. 

Even to-day this aspect of American affairs 
is still striking, though somewhat less apparent. 
I think it ought to be mentioned because it 
indicates an orientation which has, perhaps, not 
been sufficiently brought to light by the author. 
No doubt this tendency, in matters of commerce 
and industry, does correct real abuses of a far 
too self-seeking individualism, and when kept 
within due limits, does produce results on the 
w^hole salutary for the country. 

As for the idealism which must be recognized 
in Americans, it is, as M. Rodrigues very well 
says, in a large measure unconscious. It is an 
effort toward success, realization, creation; an 
effort inspired by the idealistic motives of jus- 
tice and duty. It is not consciously directed 
toward an end, but acts by virtue of an inward 
impulse, in which force and right are mingled, 
the individualistic instincts of the business man 
side by side with the puritan conscience. 

In this sort of idealism, as in his individualism, 
the American shows the defects of his qualities. 
He is restless, absorbed, unreflecting; an in- 
complete creature. He has little time for per- 
sonal culture, and little taste for it; the tran- 



xxxH INTRODl CTIOX 

quil joys of fjunily life and communion of spirit 
in the cabn realm of art touch him little. His 
traditional seventh day of reflection is now en- 
tirely claimetl hy the Sunday newspaper, with 
its fifty to a hundreil pages of sensational news. 
All this produces in him an unfortunate "fluid- 
ity" of minil, manifesttnl in that "motor type" 
which unceasingly demands a panorama of 
things to see, and which, in fact, sees none of 
them. He has no specialty outside of his busi- 
ness, is interesttxi in nothing, knows not what to 
do with his leisure. His vacations bore him, 
his recreations wear on his nerves, the approach 
of old age terrifies him. When at last he re- 
tires from business, he sutfers frightfully from 
lack of txTupation. and finally returns to busi- 
ness in order to "die in the harness." One can- 
not be surprisetl at the amazement of ^latthew 
Arnold, or the wonder of Pierre Loti, the former 
coming from the peaceful home of classical Eng- 
lish literature, the other from the torpor and 
dnwmy contemplation of the Orient, on finding 
themselves plungtHl into this maelstrom of en- 
erg\", set in motion by a mechanism which, in 
their eyes, was without basis, significance, or 
value. 

Thence follows another trait, the eminently 
superficial character of many aspects of Ameri- 



INTRODUCTION xxxiii 

can life. On all sides "haste makes waste." 
Everything is done by steam, on the spur of 
llie minute, and for immediate use. The trav- 
eller is struck by the wooden buildings, the 
fragile bridges, the provisional character of the 
arrangement of all sorts of material; studious 
men are impressed by a like haste, a like absence 
of foundation, in American teaching, research, 
and education. The American makes something 
that will "do the business," expecting to re- 
place it to-morrow. Each type of machine, 
automobile, bicycle, must present a new model 
every year, showing sojne modification or claim- 
ing to be an improvement. "New things" are 
constantly demanded, "new thought," a "new 
educational method," the "new woman," the 
"new freedom" — and this in matters in which 
that which has value is not new, and that which 
is new has no value. Change becomes the sign 
of progress. 

Politically, the American ideal sins by short- 
ness of view and lack of precision. The Con- 
stitution, wisely interpreted by the Supreme 
Court, has become the breviary of political 
truth and the charter of political rights. But the 
practical predominance of "States' rights" up 
to the Civil War, and the tradition of national 
isolation vaguely formulated by the Monroe 



xxxiv INTRODI CTION 

Doctrine, have produced a certain lukewarmness 
in national interests, and a certain apathy with 
respect to international matters. Hence re- 
sults a r(Mnarkal)le ])()pular heedlessness joined 
to an almost exclusive preoccupation with per- 
sonal and internal affairs. As M. Rodrigues 
says, a national conscience as such hardly exists 
except in times of crisis. The national device 
E pluribus ununi would better read /.v pluribus 
lutiim, insisting more strongly upon the plurality 
of the States than upon the unity of the nation. 

Furthermore, this feeble national sentiment 
has been nothing less than strengthened by the 
presence of a great mass of foreigners, but partly 
assimilated, and drawn to the country, not like 
the Pilgrim Fathers, by motives of conscience, 
but entirely by selfish motives and the desire for 
profit.^ 

Nevertheless, in spite of this indifference to 
national interests, a remarkable impulse toward 
unification and the fusion of States has mani- 
fested itself, especially since IS65. I do not 
believe there is a single country, approaching 
ours in extent, where there is so little real "sec- 
tionalism," in the sense of local differences in 
customs, sentiments, fundamental religion, and 

' I think I ought here to ndd these reasons to those which M. Uod- 
riRues ha-s ffiven (chap. Ill, sec. 3, The Union), for the inadequacy of 
the natioDiU sicDliuicnt. 



INTRODUCTION xxxv 

philosophy of Hfe. Everything, even to the 
pressure exercised by the practical and eco- 
nomical affairs of the country, has contributed 
to this result. In its industry, its civic organi- 
zation, its internal relations of all sorts, as in 
its language, customs, and manners, the country 
gives j)roof of a surprising unity. Upon this 
point I think that in certain passages of his book, 
for example, the one in which he compares the 
United States to a "boarding-house" rather 
than a "home," M. Rodrigues goes too far.^ No 
doubt the American often changes his street, 
his city, or his State, but this, to him, is simply 
to change his room in the house; he still keeps 
his address "America."^ 

As for the Constitution, its general character 
and essential lack of precision make it an ad- 
mirable instrument of constitutional develop- 
ment in the hands of the vSupreme Court. 
The judges are divided into "strict construc- 

' Sec also the comparison of the States with centrifugal forces. 

' I should love to comment upon the author's remarkable discussions 
of the President and the Constitution, but space is wanting. Perhaps 
he esteems the constitutional power of the President beyond its worth, 
for a vote of two-thirds of the Senate can neutralize his veto, and the 
Supreme Court can maintain a law that has been rctoed. The President 
has no right to introduce a bill directly, and when his party has only a 
small majority in Congress, his indirect initiative (by means of a leader 
of his party) maj' nun-t with difruulties, or even prove abortive. .\ 
comparison of the President with the Pope is not, in all respects, happy, 
for the President's influence is po|)ular and moral, in its origin as in its 
sanctions, and not autocratic or theocratic. 



xxxvi INTRODUCTION 

tionists" and "free constructionists"; these last, 
among whom was the great jurist John Marshall, 
bring to new questions the spirit rather than 
the letter of the document, and give successive 
decisions wliich, taken as a whole, form the 
great body of American constitutional law. 
Once rendered, a decision of the Supreme Court 
has the authority of a precedent. 

The duty of tlic judge in the lower courts is 
not to decide upon the validity of the constitu- 
tions, whether of State or nation (as M. Rod- 
rigues appears to indicate), but simply to inter- 
pret and apply them with other laws. Appeal 
upon tlic ground of constitutionality of a law or 
a decision is always possible; but such appeal 
must K^ brought before the Supreme Court. In 
the case of a new law the ordinary procedure is 
as follows: a person or a society intentionally 
violates the new law, in order to be prosecuted 
under this head. This establishes a "test case,'* 
which obliges the court to utter a decision. 
Some of the most important decisions in the 
annals of American jurisprudence have been 
obtaineii by means of such "test cases." 

Concerning international matters the Ameri- 
can manifests a very marktxi p<ilitical docility; 
he is always rt\idy to follow the President. The 
American people have never failed to respond 



INTRODUCTION xxxvii 

to a direct and energetic appeal from Washing- 
ton in a matter of foreign politics. In the 
present war, of the two hypotheses formulated 
by M. Rodrigues (pp. 157 and 18G), the second 
appears to me more just than the first; by this 
I mean that he is correct in saying that if the 
President had not decided upon war the nation 
might have remained neutral; but not in saying 
that "the President had great difficulties to 
overcome in winning the country to the idea of 
intervention." The truth appears to me to 
have been at once finely and truly expressed by 

a writer in a French newspaper: *'Mr. , 

according to all appearance, contributed to en- 
lighten, as to the true character of the conflict, 
the mind of the President, upright, methodical, 
but badly informed on European matters." ^ 
In the interest of a correct historic documenta- 
tion I may here call to my support the opinion of 
a prominent New York newspaper, which thus 
indicates the factors in the American decision: 
*'in the first place the best minds in the country 
convinced the people, then both acting together, 
and aided by the Germans, convinced the Presi- 
dent." 

Thus, the portrait drawn in this book faith- 
fully reproduces, in my opinion, the features of 

• R. C. Journal dfs Debuts, August 8. 1917. 



xxxviii IXTRODrCTTOX 

the American, especially as he was In the pre- 
ceding generation. As to the defects of the 
Americans, insufficient command of their en- 
ergy, a too exclusively practical character, a 
too conventional morality, a too utilitarian and 
pragmatic conception of existence — if I raise all 
these points here it is to show why we Americans, 
while accepting the praise of M. Rodrigues, 
should fall into no error as to its meaning. 

The author marvellously brings out the 
method of the American people when he says 
that their idealism is concrete and "schemat- 
ic," not "conceptual." All these words from 
his pen are terms of a rigorously precise psy- 
chological signification. 

The psychology of the experimental and 
"schematizing" imagination is the following: 
it is that type of imagination which consists in 
making current use of what one supposes, as if 
it had been established. Men treat hypotheti- 
cal pro{)ositions as if they were true; mere 
probabilities as if they had already been veri- 
fied; fictitious images as if they had been con- 
firmed by facts; concrete peculiarities as if they 
were universal. They directly make use of all 
these "schematic" ideas and images, yielding 
themselves to them in all confidence. The act 
reveals how nmch they are worth. The agent 



INTRODUCTION xxxix 

makes no lament over his dreams, does not stop 
to correct his erroneous conjectures, but, gather- 
ing in his successes in hot haste, and passing 
over the failures, plunges again into the whirl- 
pool of life. His progress is real, but experi- 
mental, empirical, pragmatic. He never goes 
to the bottom of the details of a situation ; they 
do not interest him. Thus he never attains 
to the concept, the universal idea established and 
brought to the point. 

And so on indefinitely. The man of action 
is forever throwing the dice and gathering in 
the gains of the gambler. His preferred method 
being experimentation by action, the greater 
number of American discoveries are found in 
the domain of practical invention. 

This psychological method is recognized by 
the lack of equilibrium, the poverty of reflec- 
tion, and the incomplete culture of the great 
generality of Americans. They have only one 
means of improving upon it: let them learn to 
think by the aid of adequate concepts, to cor- 
rect and complete their hasty and truncated 
"instantaneous views" of life and things. The 
American should set himself to study his errors, 
his failures, to put himself in the position of the 
spectator of the result of his efforts, to consider 
the "why" and "why not" of this and that, as 



xl INTRODUCTION 

well as he has learned the "how to do" one 
tiling, and "how not to do" another. lie should 
learn to love the universal, the truth and the 
beauty of which the schematic image is only a 
haj)j)y ai)j)roximation, even when it chances to 
be correct. 

Hence the extreme importance for the Ameri- 
can of a close contact witli the older and more 
reflecting cultures of Europe, which his tempera- 
ment enables him to appreciate, but from which 
the force of circumstances has kept him too long 
apart. French culture, the culture of the coun- 
try which has made the most profound criticism 
of art and of life, and the largest generalizations 
in the political order, which has the most pa- 
tiently tested the worth of scientific hypotheses, 
which is capable of the most marvellous clarity 
of explanation, by itself alone sufficient to dis- 
sipate obscurity and put confusion to flight — 
this culture will give new vigor to the wonder- 
ful means of intellectual perfecting which to-day 
are so strongly rooted in the soil of the United 
States — to those great private universities, those 
foundations for scientific research and for pure 
science, those luminous directing personalities, 
more numerous every year, who commend and 
who pnictise the reflective life. For it is some- 
tliing extraordinary to see with what a true in- 



INTRODUCTION xli 

stinct the resources of art, of literature, and of 
science are now put to profit by Americans. 

As to their intellectual productiveness, the 
rank which the United States now occupies in 
art, science, and literature is not, by universal 
consent, lower than fourth among all the na- 
tions of the world. 

To these fortunate influences will soon be 
added those which will issue from the war. 
The influences of this war upon the United States 
will be considerable both from the political and 
the moral point of view. They will tend to 
correct one of the defects which I have pointed 
out, the lack of unity and strength in the na- 
tional sentiment, the absence of a definite po- 
litical tendency. 

After the war we shall no longer see the na- 
tion groping for an international political faith, 
nor satisfying with vague and purely negative 
maxims of isolation and indifference its great 
desire to play its part in the world. It will 
have felt the impulse of a national mission, an 
impulse which responds to the pulses of the 
great arteries of the common life of the world. 
Never again will the name American be the 
synonym of neutrality based upon economic 
interests, complacent ignorance, and egotistic 
ambition at a time when the moral value of 



xlii INTKODICTION 

human liberty aiul tin* rii^lits of man an^ at 
stako. 

The political 'u\c'a\ of (ho KixMirhman. **friH^ 
dom jjuidini l>y insii^ht *' [la lihrrtr (juidi'r par la 
raisim — it is in thoso \M>rds that 1 dctino it), 
and the Englishman's ideal of vigorous moral 
enthusia.sm will hoth find in America a soil pre- 
parcMl to rtveive the sivds of the futuri^ alliance 
i>f fnv ptH^ples. an alliantv to whieh the Tniteil 
States will bring as a tribute their mediatizing 
conception: "Liberty arimxi with law." 

.1. Makk IVm.uwin. 
Corresponding Mrmlk'r of ///r Institute. 



PREFACE TO THE FRENCH 
EDITION 

It is my wish lo point out here the reasons 
that led me to write this book. 

First of all, I have desired to do justice to a 
great, a very great people, too often misunder- 
stood even by those who most admire tliem. 
If they are great materially, they are greater 
still, whatever may be thought of them, morally 
and ideally. Not having found the way to 
penetrate their outer shell, few of us have 
reached their soul. 

Upon this soul I have sought to throw light. 
I have not so much tried to make it understood 
as to give an intuition of it, for it does not 
speak to the intelligence; it is an emotional, 
impulsive soul, at whose touch we ourselves 
must in some sort be moved. I have tried, so 
far as I have myself found it through the works 
of writers, the acts of statesmen, and especially 
through the ardor which carries along this whole 
people, to tune myself to their diapason, and if 
possible to bring into the same accord those who 
may be led to read these pages. 



xliv PREFACE 

It is a fresh, new soul. Above all else in love 
with reality, it retains only such thoughts as 
lead to action. But it faces life with an ardor, 
an impetuosity which is an example and a les- 
son to our refined and somewhat weary men- 
tahty. a lesson of energy which, on the morrow 
of this war, Europe will need for her regenera- 
tion. 

In fact, I have most of all at heart to show 
what we may expect of America. For I believe 
that the services which she will render to us 
will be immense. 

I am not speaking merely of her military* 
measures, which surpass our most daring fore- 
casts, nor of the support of her forces, which 
will be decisive. Xot to say that her coming to 
the rehef of the French troops who for more than 
three years had been standing in the breach, 
taking her share, her large share, of the coounoo 
sacrifice, is a noble act: it is more; it is sym- 
bolic, and it brings to mind another. After a 
centurj- and a half General Pershing has come 
to help us form the United Slatn cf the World 
as General Lafayette went to coo tribute to the 
formation of the VmiUd States of Awneriea. 
The important thing is first to conquer: but 
afterward and especially to organize humanity. 
The part of America in the war appears great. 



PREFACE xlv 

but that which she is called to play in the peace 
of to-morrow is impreceiiented. 

What that ta-morrow will be no one can sav 
with certainty. But what it will not, what it 
mast not, be we already know. It must not be 
like yesterday. This war can have no other 
issue than a total and definitive winding up of 
the past- In the eyes of future historians the 
twentieth century will, no doubt, appear as one 
of those decisive epochs in which a worid van- 
ishes and a new worid takes its place. Per- 
haps it will be the eia of emancipation in which 
civilizatioo will have forever triumphed over 
barbarism. For the time being, at kast, as 
prolband a revolutioD wiD have occurred as 
that whidfi the introductkxi of Christianity 
accomplished for men. Through carnage and 
massacres, over heaps of ruins and piles of dead 
bodies, humanity discerns and with utnKxst de- 
sire summons peace, final, inmiutable peace, or- 
ganized by justice and in liberty. 

.^n tanwiur hope has passed onr Ae earth. 

But that this hope shaQ become a reahty, it 
wiU be necessary to proceed to a complete re- 
casting of the world. For this it will not suffice 
to work over the map of the globe, to substitute 
rrontiers of Right for those of Force. Man as 
a whole must be inwardlv tran^ormed. A new 



xlvi' IMUyPACE 

liuinan i\^c must he creatod, as difTorcnt from 
the so-called civilized man that wv know as 
the latter is from the savage or the caveman. 
Every notion of war, of territorial ambition, of 
violence done to the liberty of peoples, must 
vanish from our minds. In short, the man 
must come into being, 

A gigantic task, perhaps, the work of a long 
time, but by no means a Utopian task. And 
of this task America, by the organ of its Presi- 
dent, has had a clear vision, proclaijning at the 
same time her inflexil)le resolution that it shall 
be performed. The programme that she brings 
us is a programme of definitive pacification and 
universal brotherhood. While repeating what 
from her birth she has not ceased to say to us, 
"America for Americans," "Europe for Euro- 
peans," she now adds, "Humanity for man." 

Who, better than she, has the right so to 
speak.'* Is not her whole history, her brief his- 
tory, the effort first to set free and then to 
develop the human personality? lias she not 
subordinated everything to this end .^ Where 
else does the individual find greater possibilities 
of realization, whether in himself, in his spirit 
emancipated by education in liberty, or all about 
him in the free family, the free State, the free 
Union.'* The United States of America is the 



PREFACE xlvii 

only nation in the world which has not had to 
break its own chains (save those of the slaves of 
tlie South, and to do this she rose up against her- 
self), for with her, and only with her, man has 
always been a citizen, never a subject. 

It is true that this people, like all others, has 
its defects, and they are great; its solutions of 
continuity, and they are enormous. An unfin- 
ished but incomparable nation, it has produced 
a type of man which is incomplete, but also 
incomparable. What matters all that for the 
time being he lacks, so long as he has at his 
disposal the means of acquiring it.'^ While 
every effort of autocratic and despotic Germany 
is to stifle the man in us, leaving alive only the 
animal with his instinct for pleasure, and the 
slave with his habit of submission, that of Amer- 
ica is, on the contrary, according to Auguste 
Comte's fine expression: "To free our humanity 
from our animality." 

This is what she is bringing to the world, the 
hope, no, the assurance, of human emancipa- 
tion. This is the profound significance of her 
joining in the struggle. This is what will pro- 
long her effort far beyond the limits of the war. 
This is why, this is wherein she appears as a 
great idealistic force, which proposes that its 
ideal shall not remain a beautiful dream, but is 



xlviii PREFACE 

puttirif? fordi a ^n^'antic effort to make of it a 
near and effective reality. 

But to this general human interest, which I 
have found in bringing to light the real physi- 
ognomy of America and the part which she 
seems to me to be called to play, is added in 
iiiy ^y^s a more direct and immediate interest 
for us Frenchmen. 

Our two countries seem to me to be called to 
understand one another; I would add, to love 
one another. There are between them closer af- 
finities than l)etween any other two nations of the 
Entente. Both are the countries of the Right. 
Both have made the human individual the end 
of human society. Both have made an effort 
to realize, not merely to proclaim, the grand 
Republican device, "Liberty, Equality, Fra- 
ternity." Both, finally, have always believed 
that on the triumph of their ideal depends at 
once the welfare of their country and the pros- 
perity of the human race. 

In the course of my work I have more than 
once had occasion to point out one or another 
of these points of contact between us. They, 
on their side, have also felt themselves nearer 
to us than to our allies. If they are loyally 
united to all of them, they are something more 
for us: Ihev are the friends of France. 



PREFACE xlix 

At the time of the late visit of the French 
Mission to the United States, in the midst of 
the enthusiasm of the popular ovations, an 
American thus exquisitely expressed the senti- 
ment with which we inspired them: "France 
is the sweetheart of the world." America does 
not propose to let her heart cease to beat. She 
knows too well that, France dead, the world 
would perish. 

She proposes even more: so to perform that 
her heart shall beat more strongly than ever, 
that its pulsations, for a little while weakened, 
shall again throb with a generous influx of 
newly quickened blood. She is ready, with all 
her strength, to help us work toward the eco- 
nomic reinstatement of our country, our incom- 
parable country, which has passed through so 
many crises, always to come forth more valiant, 
with energies newly tempered by trial. 

Thus between us and them is being prepared 
the creation of something more and better than 
an alliance, an intimacy. They had somewhat 
forgotten us, during these latter years; let 
us perform our mea culpa, we had somewhat 
caused ourselves to be forgotten by them; we 
had somewhat too much forgotten ourselves. 
The long peace which for them had been so full 
of activity had been for us too idle and empty. 



1 PREFACE 

They had ahnost forgotten the colors of our 
flag, which they hardly ever saw flying in their 
seaports. But how we found ourselves, and 
found one another, in the hour of danger ! 
After the Marne, Verdun revealed us to them as 
a people no longer to be suspected. We amazed 
them, compelling them to recognize that which 
is the fundamental genius of our race, our 
faculty of revivification. 

This is the genius of our race, and also of 
theirs. We, France and Ajnerica, are the two 
great creative Powers. Creation is with us 
more intellectual: we bring forth an idea and 
sow it broadcast through the world; they, more 
crude and materialistic, deluging their own 
country and the whole world with their products, 
while producing them have caused the idea to 
spring forth. But neither they nor we are 
plagiarists and imitators, peoples who follow. 
The discoveries of both of us are drawn from 
our own capital, not borrowed or stolen from 
others. France has her Pasteur, America her 
Edison. What names can Germany put face 
to face with these .'^ 

W^e are, therefore, made to understand and 
to complete one another. Let us ask of America 
her vigor and competitiveness, and in exchange 



• 



PREFACE li 

let us give her our culture and the "sweetness" 
which she has recognized in us. Let us refine 
her and let her virilize us. 

In order to do this, on both our parts, our 
effort should tend to strengthen and multiply 
our relations. Let there be between us a series 
of exchanges of all kinds, intellectual as well as 
material. Happy results in this direction have 
already been obtained. The United States have 
heard the voices of a few of our university 
men, and they have enabled us to hear the 
voices of theirs. But this is only a first step. 
We must create common organs, and even more, 
perhaps, centres of common thought, and this 
in all domains, in commerce, in industry, in the 
press, in the university. On the morrow of the 
war "American tours" must be organized for 
our French students, and "French tours" for 
the students of America. There must be a 
thorough penetration and, so to speak, con- 
stant impregnation of these two peoples, one 
by the other. This is the work of to-morrow 
which it behooves us to enter upon even to- 
day. 

Dare I say, in closing, that it is partly in the 
dream of such a work that I have written this 
book? If here, and perhaps over there, I may 



Hi PREFACE 

have inspired a few hearts with the desire of 
undertaking it, I shall deem myself lavishly 
p>aid for my labor, and shall judge that my 
effort will not have been useless. 

G. R. 



THE PEOPLE OF ACTION' 



CHAPTER I 

AMERICA AND THE CONDITIONS 
OF ITS EXISTENCE 

PREJUDICE AGAINST THE UNITED STATES.— 
AMERICAN REALISM AND IDEALISM 

3l MERIC A has been twice discovered : phys- 
/-\ ically by Christopher Columbus, mor- 
ally with President Wilson. And the 
second discovery was no less unexpected, nor 
is it less valuable, than the first. 

Popular imagination lives upon legend: Amer- 
ica is a fabulous Eldorado; the Yankee is a 
materialist, eager for gain, his mind closed to 
every generous idea; a "dollar-hunting animal," 
a money-making machine to whom all methods 
are good. If people work hard on the other 
side of the Atlantic their labor is mechanical 
and with no outlook. The United States is an 
immense workshop; the prodigious activity 
there manifested is exercised for the gratifica- 
tion of crude and elementary instincts. 

This rather too simple picture has the defects 
of a caricature without its good qualities; it 



4 THE PEOPLE OF ACTIOxN 

distorts what it portrays. It gives no sugges- 
tion of the still more formidable moral energy 
which gives impulse to this formidable accumula- 
tion of physical energy. There is, indeed, a 
prodigious industrial activity in the United 
States, but it is set in motion by an idea, and 
is placed at the service of an idea. In the 
American we must see, not a materialist eager 
for enjoyment; he is very precisely the con- 
trary, an idealist in search of results. In fact, 
there is no productive realism without a latent 
idealism. In order to realize there must be 
first a conception, a spirit of invention, a taste 
for research, a desire for the better, underneath 
all, a sense of the ideal. 

But it must be confessed that this ideal is 
different from ours; it is original, unexpected, 
well adapted to disconcert the mind of a French- 
man or a European. To understand it we must 
do violence to our prepossessions and try first 
of all to place ourselves in the midst of the very 
special conditions, unknown to previous history, 
which presided at the birth of the United States. 
These conditions we shall endeavor to bring to 
light. 



AMERICA AND ITS EXISTENCE 5 



fflSTORIC CONDITIONS 

The United States have no historic past. — Their freedom from 
national hatred. — Colonial origins. — Subordmation and 
elimination of the indigenous element. — Immigration and 
the juxtaposition of races. — No English hegemony, — 
America not Anglo-Saxon. — American patriotism. — Fed- 
eralism and particularism. — The "faculty of absorption" 
of the United States. — The American patrie in process of 
becoming. 

America is a new country, that is to say, a 
country without a past, and by so much with- 
out a history. It has enjoyed the privilege — 
for it is one — of having been from birth open to 
civihzation without having known barbarism. 
There is nothing Hke it in our Old World, for 
the very reason that it is old. Upon Europe 
lies a heavy weight, the glorious burden of cen- 
turies. 

Glorious burden, we say, for the past survives 
itself in the present, and bars the way to the 
future. In every domain, intellectual, political, 
social, national, and international, the forces of 
conservatism, not to say of reaction, rear them- 
selves before the forces of progress. It becomes 
necessary to destroy before building. 

The United States have nothing to destroy. 
They came into being, as their true creator him- 



6 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

self cacknowlotlgcd, at a "fortunate moment."' 
"The formation of our empire dates back, not 
to a dark period of ignorance and sui)erstition, 
but to an epoch when the rights of the human 
race were better understood and more ck'arly 
defined than at any earHer time."" Every- 
thing smik^d upon their dawn, the works of 
philosophers and k\giskitors, the culture of 
letters, the development of education, the ex- 
tension of commerce, the transformation of 
industry. America was born with civilization. 

Consequently, she has avoided the three 
snares which we deem the most threatening. 
She knows nothing: 1, of fiational hatred of rival 
national iiies ; '■2, of uioribuud forms of govern- 
vicnt, more or less infected with the virus of 
autocracy; 3, of antiquated methods of production. 
She knows nothing of what we may term "the 
European uneasiness." In our old Europe the 
modern states are not sufficiently modernized. 
Their efforts at emancijiation take the method 
of violent agitation: with the outer world, wars; 
at home, revolutions, either political or indus- 
trial, and by that fact social. 

Let us imagine, on the other hand, a privileged 
nation, coming into existence at the very time 
when the physical progress of science and tlie 

' Quoted from Washington, by J. Fabrc, Washington, p. 456. 
» lb., p. 256. 



AMERICA AND ITS EXISTENCE 7 

intellectual progress of the human mind have 
made a clean sweep of routines and prejudices. 
Let us grant to it, with the inexperience of 
youth, all its freshness, its illusions, and its ardor 
for the fray. It rises with a bound to the 
point to which other peoples have attained only 
by slow and painful effort. Well, such a nation 
exists, and its name is the United States. Em- 
erson recognized it. "The new conditions of 
humanity in America are really favorable to 
progress, to the elimination of absurd restric- 
tions and ancient illegalities."^ 

First of all, America knows nothing of na- 
tional hatreds. Two reasons may be given for 
this : she is not face to face with another people 
with whom to fight; she is herself a people in 
the way of perpetual formation and transforma- 
tion, rather than a people already formed. 

America does not know what a foreigner is. 
She began by being a colony. Now, in a colony 
there are, properly speaking, no foreigners; 
there are only natives and colonists. The lat- 
ter, whencesoever they have come, soon forget 
their origin and merge themselves into a society. 
As for the native, not only is he excluded, he is 
hardly considered to be a man. 

Now, the foreigner is a man like ourselves; 
if we have a quarrel with him we settle it by 

' Emerson, Essays. 



8 THK IM:0PLE OF ACTION 

arms. We treat liiin as an enemy, that is to 
say, u\) to a eertain point an e(jual. For even 
war itself, however it may sul)stitute the rule 
of fact for the rnle of law, is not with<jut some 
legal character. The j)roof of this is that the 
vanquished is treated with, not exterminated. 
He was the host is of the Romans, who even in 
defeat still preservetl a personality, a legal 
character. 

Nothing of the sort prevails with the native, 
our "savage," the equivalent of the ancient 
barharis. With him is recognized no law, how- 
ever minimized; he is a thing and not a person. 
Consequently he is treated as such, is considered 
as a means, not an end. Negro or redskin, he 
is a slave, a "living tool," to he subjugated and 
expropriated. The very principle of coloniza- 
tion is that the native is not an equal. And 
even in our days, though slavery is legally abol- 
ished, colonial wars are still fundamentally dis- 
tinct from wars between civilized men. Whence 
comes the revolt which the present proceedings 
of Germany has aroused in the universal con- 
science? Essentially from this one fact, that 
she treats lier civilized adversaries as if they 
were savages, and the nations of Europe as if 
they were colonies. 

Now, when planting itself in America the 



AMERICA AND ITS EXISTENCE 9 

white race came in contact with no foreigners 
with whom to fight. There was a struggle, but 
not of one nation against another nation, but 
of a nation against savages. The native has 
always been looked upon as an outlaw, and has 
very soon been made an out-life, if the word 
may be coined. Almost everywhere he has dis- 
appeared. The few fragments of the original 
race which yet remain represent only the small- 
est fraction of the population of the United 
States. Pushed back and enclosed in a corner 
of the immense territory of the Union, they 
form, from every point of view, a negligible 
quantity. As for the negroes imported from 
Africa, if we find them in swarms in the South- 
ern States, there enjoying in theory the same 
social and political rights as the whites, it is well 
known that in fact they are reduced to impo- 
tence, and in all places, at the theatre, on the 
railroad and the tramway are separated from the 
real Americans as by a water-tight compart- 
ment. Even if the feebler race that originally 
peopled the territory of the United States had 
survived, they would have been practically an- 
nihilated, as in India or Africa, by the emprise 
of the stronger race. The expropriation would 
not have been less thorough. 

Thus the civilized men who have spread 



10 TIIK PI':()PLK OF ACTION 

themselves over North America us a drop of 
oil spreads, have nowhere encountered other 
fjroiips of civilized men constituted as a nation. 
Their very wars, most rare from this fact, have 
a special character all their own. The War of 
IndejKMidence was waged against a tyrant, the 
War of Secession against fellow citizens. Both 
of them, the first hardly less than the .second, 
were civil rather than national wars. And take 
it all in all, the young America, instead of being, 
like the old Europe, an enclosed field for com- 
bat, has seemed from its earliest hours to be a 
free field, clean-swept for the exercise of all 
activities. 

A second and even more favorable condition 
existed at the beginning, and by a happy and 
continually recurring chance has })een main- 
tainc<l throughout the entire life of the New 
World, so brief as it has been. There was not, 
there is not now, and doubtless there never 
will be, in the United States the overlordship of 
a dominant race, subordinating to itself the 
fragmentary elements of other and less numer- 
ous peoples. There was, there still is, from all 
directions an influx of European, not lo say of 
world, energies: English, French, Italian, Ja{)a- 
nese, Irish, Polish, Russian Jew, etc., at first 



AMERICA AND ITS EXISTENCE 11 

settling down side by side, then mingling, near 
the Atlantic shores or on the plains of the Far 
West. And if by this procedure the United 
States have come to bear a slight resemblance 
to the Tower of Babel, this only proves that the 
Tower of Babel had its good points. 

In fact, these simultaneous or successive lay- 
ers, even when for a time they retained their 
original physiognomy, never clashed, but rather 
harmonized as they settled side by side. It 
cannot be said that they blended, but rather 
that, on the w^hole, they developed along paral- 
lel and relatively independent lines. Falling 
into a rhythm which is that of American life 
itself, they mutually adapted themselves to one 
another, and became, as it were, cemented to- 
gether. They geared themselves together like 
the wheels of an immense machine, complicated 
yet phable, and became one. They do not blend 
like streams which mingle their waters and are 
lost in one river; it is somewhat characteristic of 
America that its several parts preserve each its 
own character while receiving the common im- 
print of the whole. Independence and inter- 
dependence of intertangled yet distinct elements 
appears to be the law that rules this complex 
which is the United States. 



n THE PEOPLE OE ACTIOX 

Tlic irriiplion continues, the incessant influx 
of imnii<,'rants permits none of the groups to 
consohdate and take precedence of the others 
in economic or poHtical power. America is the 
product of these sporadic c(Forts; it aj)j)ears to 
be a sort of vortex into whicli penetrate and are 
carried along currents of circuhition coming 
from all directions, each of whicli falls into the 
general movement, making its own way among 
the others while carried along with them, all in 
the progress of the whole. Order automatically 
creates itself in this chaos by virtue of that 
power of absorption which in some manner 
snatches up each individual as he passes and 
agglomerates him with the whole. These re- 
peated impacts, these recurring collisions, little 
l)y little disintegrate the groui)s which on their 
arrival were national, and blend their human 
material into a new and more compact mass, 
from which emerges, or rather from which will 
emerge, the American nation. 

Not that the tie with the original fatherland 
of each is broken. In this new country, still in 
fermentation, it abides longer than in the more 
unified European nations. Hut it is looser, 
more suj)ple. The embrace of the American 
country is strong because it is unceremonious. 
It seizes upon its man and will not let him go. 



AMERICA AND ITS EXISTENCE 13 

Even the visiting foreigner barely escapes it. 
Iluret had been only a few days in New York 
when he felt himself won over by his surround- 
ings. "This country's power of absorption is 
so great," he says, "that I am already in the 
way of becoming an American."^ The desire 
of merging oneself into a group of his national 
affinity is felt here more strongly than else- 
where, but it is an instinct of self-preservation 
from a flood which is carrying him along by its 
suction. One clings to the old country all the 
more ardently as he is the more rapidly won 
over by the new. One remains partly French, 
English, Italian, while becoming w^holly Ameri- 
can. The very Germans cannot help being 
Americanized, in spite of themselves, and this 
not in the long run, but in a relatively short 
time. And thus we finally see a number of 
insulated groups, somewhat analogous to those 
which in our country are formed by associations 
of men originally from the Somme or from Lot- 
et-Garonne; they are still somewhat Picards, 
somewhat Gascons, and entirely Frenchmen. 

Race in America has, therefore, a character 
all its own. It depends not upon origin, but 
upon result. Therefore nothing is more errone- 
ous than the belief in an Anglo-Saxon America. 

• Iluret, De Sew York A la NouvcUe-OrUans, p. S. 



14 THE PEOPLE OF ACTTOX 

The only European people with w lioin the Amer- 
ican people can l)r compared is our own. Not 
that there is nnich l-'rcrK h hlood in their veins 
— there are only a few droj)s of it — hut because, 
like French hlood, American l)lo()d is the result 
of a mixture, and, as Renan has said, the "mixed 
bloods" are the freshest, the youngest, the rich- 
est. Admit all the differences that you will — 
and they arc ijinncnse — there is something in 
conunon between American and Gallic activity, 
between the indomitable energy of the Yankee 
and the furia franccsc. It is more and better 
than affinity of race; it is similarity of tempera- 
ment. Both nations arc melting-pots. 

Let us add that distance, far from setting the 
various States of America in opposition, has 
drawn them together. Precluding friction, it 
has at the same time prevented their develop- 
ment into rival nations, and has effected a 
welding instead of a mixture. In the early days 
vast spaces were open to colonization. Groups 
of emigrants scattered themselves in every di- 
rection. Deserts often lay between these con- 
geries in process of formation. There were no 
such continual interchanges as occur every day 
from one end of France or of England to the 
other. Peculiarities are, therefore, more marked 
here than in Europr. Each group, consuming 



AMERICA AND ITS EXISTENCE 15 

what it produces, and producing what it con- 
sumes, takes upon itself a local, personal, 
sharply defined character. Thus there are not 
States within the state — we shall see that the 
word State has no meaning to an American — 
still less nations within the nation, but au- 
tonomous organizations, somewhat similar in 
their several proportions to the little Greek 
republics of antiquity, with their special consti- 
tutions and their distinctive habits. The essen- 
tial difference is that America is not a country, 
but a world. The city or the district is formed 
by the juxtaposition of individuals; the State 
by the juxtaposition of cities or districts, the 
Union by the juxtaposition of States. The tie 
is rather federal than national, or rather, nation- 
ality is here understood only under the form of 
federation. 

As a result there are at once fewer resem- 
blances and fewer competitions among neigh- 
boring groups. In this America, which began 
by being a mosaic (and which has not entirely 
ceased to be one), interests are various but easily 
become solidary; in Europe, on the other hand, 
they are analogous and strongly opposed. The 
various European nations, confined in narrow 
territories, stifling within their frontiers, live 
always upon a war footing, ev^en in times of 



16 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

peace. The United States, at lar^e upon their 
immense continent, hardly knowing what a 
frontier properly is, in a country where the 
!)oundaries of States are drawn hy a i)lunil)-line 
like the checker-hoard streets of their towns, 
having in their recent past few bloody memories 
and few germs of conflict, are before all else 
preoccupied with themselves, and mutually 
concern themselves little with their respective 
destinies. But, when occasion occurs, they are 
prompt to unite upon any matter of interest, 
urged not so much by a sentiment of patriotism, 
at least not at the outset, as guided by the pre- 
caution of the business man. It is a marriage 
of reason, not of inclination. Issuing from a 
"hodge-podge" of multicolored elements, they 
constituted themselves on the principle of every 
man for himself, and when they agreed to unite, 
individuals and groups of individuals added 
themselves together like the units of a sum, 
rather than organized themselves like the mem- 
bers of a living body. 

Their unity, at least their original unity, is 
then more ext(Tnal, though not more artificial, 
than that of the nations of the Old World. It 
consists above all in a series of interchanges, 
a sort of economic mutual aid, rather than in a 
totality of common aspirations. The latter are 



AMERICA AND ITS EXISTENCE 17 

slow to come, and even to this day have not 
been completely formulated. At the very least, 
communion of thought first arises from a com- 
munity of interests. In their case it lacks — if 
this be not quite as much a good quality as a 
fault — the two features of what may be called 
the ancient patriotism. America knows noth- 
ing of that offensive and defensive patriotism 
which is born of the sentiment of envy or the 
sense of danger, for she has no territorial am- 
bition, and therefore is a menace to no one; 
and not believing herself to be an object of 
foreign covetousness (up to the present time, 
at least) has felt herself menaced by no one. 
Neither has she, or but imperfectly, what may 
be called internal patriotism, resulting from a 
common origin, a long tradition which each one 
cherishes for himself, for his fireside, his home, 
for she was born of yesterday, formed of dis- 
similar elements drawn from the four corners 
of the globe; to those who tread her soil she 
does not as yet afford the intimacy of a home 
or the warmth of a fireside. The European 
lives in his house; the American builds his. 
To the inhabitant of the United States his 
country is still somewhat of a "boarding-house." 
In the matter of patriotism as in all else, America 
is a new country. 



18 THE PKOriJ-: OF A( TTOX 

But it would 1)0 profoundly unjust to conclude 
from this that the national sentiment is less 
strong here than elsewhere. It is different, more 
poignant still, perhaps, hecause it is younger 
and less consolidated. Like most of the senti- 
ments of this effervescent mass, it is in the way 
of perpetual becoming, and incessant realization. 
It is a patriotism which is " being made," and 
not a "ready-made" patriotism. To the Ameri- 
can the patric is not behind him in a venerated 
past, it is before him, in a future which he 
foresees and is helping to bring rnto being. 
"Go ahead !" The old device is truer here than 
anywhere else. The American is moving toward 
his patric, and creating it by the very movement 
in which he seeks for it. 

Thus we should not ask him too insistently 
what he loves in his homeland, for he would be 
somewhat embarrassed to tell you. Our Euro- 
pean patries have fixed contours, a physiognomy 
long ago determined. We love them as the 
child loves the long-familiar features of the 
mother who gave him life. Contrariwise, the 
American patric, born but yesterday, is still in 
process of formation. The American bends 
over her as I lie mother ox'er her new-born child, 
seeking to distinguish in her vaguely sketched 
features the form thai lhc\- will take to-morrow. 



AMERICA AND ITS EXISTENCE 19 

He is conscious that she is his work, that she 
comes forth from him rather than he from her. 
His patrie is, more than anything else, a will to 
be, a part of his own will, a hope rather than a 
reality, and a hope to be realized. He will 
realize it. That is his true reason for being. 

Thus, from each autonomous group, and 
from each individual in each group, springs an 
impulse which contributes to the making of the 
nation. America is itself that impulse. She 
is going forward. Whither .'^ The question is 
without meaning. She is going, without ask- 
ing herself toward what end, for that will be de- 
termined as she realizes herself. The philoso- 
phy of William James, that metaphysician of 
action, that of M. Bergson in France, all doc- 
trines of liberty and indetermination, help us 
to understand her. America is a sort of "Crea- 
tive Evolution," great with all possibilities 
without expressly pursuing any one. She pro- 
duces for the sake of producing, and in order to 
produce herself, as the effect of a superabun- 
dance of life, of an overabundance of energy, 
which feels the need of expending itself. To 
make something new, and to make herself new, 
these are her faith and her force. Her move- 
ment does not follow a road already traced; 
the road traces itself as the movement goes on. 



20 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

Furthorinore, it is not a case of one uniform, 
unilinear movement. The ''vital impulse" is 
not a single push, made once for all. It has its 
source in a multitude of individual energies, 
not concerted, not even recognizing one another, 
upspringing from all sides, exploding in every 
direction. The progress of America is compara- 
ble to that of a huge rocket in its flight heaven- 
ward, throwing off sparks at every point of its 
course. P^ach parcel of flame may represent 
one of those individual wills whose whole forms 
the luminous trail. 

No symbol could be better chosen to represent 
the United States than the starry flag. The 
unity of America is that of the Milky Way, a 
long train of distinct stars carried along in a 
single movement, and united in one vision. 

II 

POLITICAL CONDITIONS 

The United States have no political past. — The oriqinal rlemoc- 
raey and autonomy. — Ignorance of autocracy and cen- 
tralization. 

There is another reason for the rapid progress 
achieved by the United States. America did 
not, like Europe, pass gradually from barbarism 
to civilization. "America was discovered after 



AMERICA AND ITS EXISTENCE 21 

the extinction of the feudal disease, so that the 
people had a good point of departure.''^ She did 
not have to grope her way amidst accumulated 
obstacles. "The great advantage of the Ameri- 
cans is to have arrived at democracy without 
having to suffer democratic revolutions, arid to 
have been horn equals instead of becoming such.'"^ 
They are an adult people who were never chil- 
dren. America was born a major and not a 
minor. 

In consequence America escaped the condition 
of tutelage which has weighed so heavily upon 
all other nations. Everywhere else there has 
been, and there still is, a conflict between gov- 
ernors and the governed. Such a conflict in 
America would have no sense. 

In fact, in the strict meaning of the term, 
there are neither governors nor governed there; 
there is a people that governs itself, or rather — 
for the term would be incorrect — that directs 
its own affairs. The act by which America was 
constituted was an act of independence, of the 
emancipation of the governed from the gov- 
ernors, of "self-government," or rather of the 
rejection of all government. America affirmed 
herself as a union of free peoples, more jealous 

' Emerson, Ensays. 

* De Tocqucville, Dc la DSmocralie en AmSriquc, II, j). 2^C). 



22 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

of their liberties than of their union. This pro- 
tects that. Americans associate themselves in 
order to increase and guarantee their autonomy, 
not to abdicate it. 

To escape from government is, for America, 
to escape from despotism, since she was under 
subjection to a fcjreign Power. But, while 
shaking off the detested yoke, she had no in- 
tention of placing herself beneath another. 
United, but not unified. States were formed. 
Each State preserves its sovereignty, its liberty 
and indei)endence, and every power, jurisdic- 
tion, and right which is not expressly delegated 
by this confederation to the United States in 
Congress assembled.^ In its first intention the 
republic was to be simply a police against for- 
eign Powers. Now all that is asked of the 
police is protection, not direction. Men keep 
watch against its interference in matters of 
private life. The States kept watch against its 
intervention in affairs of public life. They pro- 
posed to direct themselves. In this sense there 
was not, and even at the present day there 
hardly is, anything like government in the 
United States. 

It rcsiills (liat aiitocracj', lliat legacy of the 
past and open wound of Europe, that source of 

• CoDslitulion of 1777, Art. i. 



AMERICA AND ITS EXISTENCE 23 

foreign wars and intestine dissensions, represents 
nothing to an American. He does not know 
what it is to have, or to have had, a master. 
The danger, the mere idea, of a despot, or even 
of sovereignty, cannot occur to the mind of 
citizens who are all free and all equal, belong- 
ing to free and equal States. They know the 
power, not of the man, but of the law; "liberty 
armed with law." ^ The sole authority which 
they respect is that of their Constitution, and 
their Constitution is themselves. It expresses 
the primitive "social contract," the adhesion, 
both individual and unanimous, which created 
them, so to say, a collective moral person. It 
soars above all and every one, above laws and 
legislators. The precarious will of changing ma- 
jorities breaks itself against its immutable pre- 
scriptions. Right is above fact. 

The popularity of a single man will never be 
dreaded, for it cannot encroach upon individual 
liberties. The President of the republic is en- 
dowed with plenary powers, for it is intended 
that the executive should have a free hand, and 
not be at any moment subject to the questiona- 
ble control of the Houses. But his powers are 
very precisel}^ those of the president of the ex- 
ecutive committee of a joint-stock company, 

* Lea EtaU-Unia et la France. Address by J. M. Baldwin, p. 1G7. 



24 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

held to render account to the stockholders who 
nominated him. Elected by the people, he 
speaks to the people. In the United States a 
parliament is useless to represent public opin- 
ion; in case of need public opinion can express 
itself, not by intermediaries, but directly by 
itself. It is not, as in the Germany of to-day, 
or in the czarist Russia of yesterday, a merely 
apparent power, to be despised or put down; 
nor even as in France, and especially in Eng- 
land, a power to be manipulated, and with which 
one must reckon. It is the only power that 
counts. The President is but the guardian of 
the liberty of tlie States. 

The character of the political struggles shows 
this. There is no reactionary party in the 
United States as in Europe — there is even 
hanlly a conservative party. In fact, there is 
nothing to ''restore," and very little to "con- 
serve." The principal thing is to create. There- 
fore there is nothing here that resembles the 
Lmperialistic squirearchy {J unkerthum) of Ger- 
many, that body-guard of the Kaiser; neither is 
there anything analogous to the counter-revo- 
lutionists of France, dreaming of a military dic- 
tatorship in default of an impossible return to the 
old order. "Democrats" and "Republicans" — 
the two epithets are with us almost synonymous 



A^[ERICA AND ITS EXISTEXCE 25 

— are at one on most essential points, and nota- 
bly sinee the Great War the framework of both 
parties appears to be going to pieces. The 
"Socialists." there as elsewhere, but perhaps 
less there than elsewhere, and in any case with 
less success, form a class party. But if all 
anticipate the future of their country differently, 
all turn their eyes toward the future; none of 
them looks toward the past. For all they will 
to have Hberty, are moving toward hberty, and 
"the old is for slaves." 

Our antiquated political frippery is of no use 
here. Monarchy, czarism, imperiaHsm stand 
for no realities in the United States: they are 
words having only a historic sense. Europe, to 
an American who crosses the ocean, is something 
hke a museum, an old curiosity-shop, which he 
visits to admire its relics, and not to find an 
example. From the political point of view it 
is to him what the empire of Augustus would 
be to us, if it were given us to penetrate into it 
in our day — a reconstituted anachronism. We 
produce upon him the etTect of people whom his 
country has passed by, if it could be possible 
to pass by those whom one has never met upon 
his road. The idea of the domination of a 
man, or a group of men, over a collectivity, is 
as foreign to him as that of slavery to us, the 



26 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

domination of one man over anollicr. In short. 
we arc not liviiii,' the same political lif«'. "^riic 
European moves in an atmosphere of authority 
and government, as tiie Aincriean moves in an 
atmosphere of freedom. 

It is, therefore, sufficiently difficult for us to 
understand one another upon more than one 
])oinl. Our social lifi', fixed, re^'ulated, canal- 
ized, and discij)lined, has no relation to his, re- 
laxed, impetuous, and a little hit anarchical. 
This is because from their origin the United 
States have been enfranchised from all the serv- 
itudes that weigh upon us, whether as realities 
or as survivals. They have elbow-room, and 
where we must unceasingly struggle lest we fall 
back to the past, they have only to go forward. 

TIT 
ECONOMIC COXDITTOXS 

The United States have no economie past. — America was bom 

C()iit«'ini)<)ran(H)u,sly with sricnce. — Riitional nii<l not em- 
pirical (liarartrr of American pnMJuction. — A^jricultnre. — 
Commerce. — Iiuhistry. — The l'iiite<i States the land of 
the new and of invention. — American phirali:sm. — American 
activity. 

Finally, and perhaps above all, as America 
has escaped subjection to govermnental au- 
thority, she has not had to wrestle with eco- 
nomic routine. 



AMERICA AND ITS EXISTENCE 27 

Politically, America was born at the same time 
as liberty. Economically, she was born at the 
same time as science. She had the exceptional 
good fortune of coming face to face with the 
problem of production in a new country and 
wuth new methods. The discovery of steam 
and the War of Independence were almost 
contemporaneous. For the making of America 
energy would not have sufficed, a tool was also 
necessary. Man provided the energy, science 
the tool. 

Science in reality dates from yesterday. To 
antiquity and the Middle Age it was totally un- 
known. In the seventeenth century it found 
its path with Bacon and Descartes, and showed 
itself "active in nature and its conqueror." 
But not until the nineteenth century did it 
show its first practical results, and the United 
States date from the nineteenth century. 

Thenceforth nothing has hindered them, but 
rather everything has invited them to apply 
the great scientific discoveries to the exploita- 
tion of the new continent. In Europe, when 
machinofaciure would replace manufacture ^ it 
clashed against the prejudices of some and the 
interests of others. Peasants, fast bound to 
their bits of ground, hidebound masters, be- 
numbed with age-long habit, workingmen threat- 
ened with cruel loss of employment, leagued 



28 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

themselves together against it, the first with all 
the force of inertia, the others organizing active 
resistance. Contrariwise America, poor in men, 
lacking in laboring force, but rich in enterpris- 
ing minds, immense spaces, and inexhaustible 
natiu*al forces, was clearly marked as a land of 
experiment in the application of new methods. 
She was not long in taking her i)lace at the head 
of the industrial movement. It was her origi- 
nality that she organized, and organized on a 
large scale, the substitution of rational for em- 
pirical production. EurojKs which had preceded 
her in discovery, could only follow her, afar off 
and timidly, in its application. 

Her principal characteristics are largeness 
of concei)tion, rapidity of decision, and — ^in a 
word — audacity in execution. She goes to her 
labor as a soldier to the firing-line. 

There is nothing like this in prudent, deliber- 
ate Europe, frugal of her resources, and, partly 
by necessity, partly by habit, doing things on a 
small scale. Is it the case of the peasant, es- 
pecially in France.^ Lc>nfe' a st^'rf, mercilessly 
subject to taxation and forced labor, he had 
remained fixed upon his glebe, had "taken root" 
there. Freed from slavery, his ambitions are 
still limited and his horizon contracted. He 



AMERICA AND ITS EXISTENCE 29 

deems himself well off in owning the bit of land 
which he formerly cultivated for another. And 
if he seeks to "round out his property," it is by 
a series of carefully considered, progressive 
acquisitions. He has always walked step by 
step. Often he, the possessor of a bit of prop- 
erty, has run against the possessors of other 
bits of property. Thence have arisen possible 
conflicts, possessions within the bounds of other 
possessions, tending to paralyze initiative and 
dissipate effort. As a consequence, we see so 
much intensive cultivation, the effort to pro- 
duce much from little, instead of the attempt 
to produce a smaller proportion, but an infi- 
nitely larger total, by means of large undertak- 
ings of extensive culture. 

When the colonist seeks the American plains 
what does he find ? Immense reaches of land 
without an owner, offering infinite possibilities, 
but nothing to attach him to one part more 
than another, no past of toil and sweat to create 
a tie of affection between him and the soil, 
making the man as much the possession of the 
soil as the soil the property of the man. All is 
his, if he knows how to take it. From that 
moment his vision becomes a vision of con- 
quest, of the future. Faith and hope arise in 
him. 



30 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

But tlicro is cvorytliin*? to he done, if not 
alone, at least in isolation, with little aid. He 
must, therefore, work rapidly, sow large spaces, 
hrinf,' the machine to replace the absent hands. 
Production will })e smaller to the acreage, but 
he can extend his tillage indefinitely. As a 
result, being less closely bound to his glel)e, he 
becomes less a "hand" and more a master of 
enterprise. Almost unconsciously he becomes 
more intelligent, acquires decision, initiative. 
Agriculture becomes modernized, industrialized 
Model farms a})pear, where production on a large 
scale is carried on. So the land comes to be 
exploited as men exploit a mine. 

Thus a race is formed. Faculties once un- 
dreamed of, or sleeping, come into play; men 
must needs coml^ine, imagine, take risks, must 
l)e men and not tools. Moral progress goes on 
side by side with economic advance. Men who 
were once content to imitate, now no longer 
hesitate to invent. Possibilities of action stim- 
ulate ambitions, induce initiatives. Personali- 
ties and wealth are created at the same time. 

The same is the case with commerce. Daring 
is easy where success is probable and near at 
hand, and in its turn success, arousing self- 
confidence, encourages new daring. In the 



AMERICA AND ITS EXISTENCE 31 

early days of this new country demand over- 
passed supply. A man came to a desert and 
founded a city; he opened a market and sold 
the proceeds of his ventures to the first comer. 
Ahnost or wholly without competitors, he was 
master of the situation. There were always 
needs to be satisfied, and among so active a 
race it was easy to create new needs. Thence 
arose a sort of intoxication of desire to do better, 
or rather, to do more; for desire for quantity 
took precedence of concern for quality. Men 
sought to develop the largest possible business, 
and of all sorts, for the "business man" does 
not specialize; he opens counting-houses and 
branches, speculates in land, in gold, in coal, 
in hogs, in railways, in securities; everything 
is good to him if it enlarges the field of his ac- 
tivity and promises a profit for his pains. One 
enterprise leads to another, and each special 
enterprise tends to develop itself, to swell, 
though, like the frog in the fable, it should 
burst in consequence. 

Even more than commerce, industry is the 
chosen field of American activity, for it makes 
most visibly evident, in the most material form, 
the mental effort from which it derives existence. 
A guiding thought is evident everywhere, in the 



32 THE pp:ople of action 

complexities of production, in the accumulation 
of merchandise, in the «(earing of macliines, in 
the number of hands, in the extent of shops. 
Here more than elsewhere the means are ready 
for whoever will take them, abundance of raw 
material, wealth hid in the bowels of the earth, 
numerous and powerful natural forces, and 
everything in profusion. The orography of the 
country, its vast plains, its broad valleys, its 
rivers that are floating roadways, its lakes that 
are inland seas, facilitate the construction of 
lines of communication and the multiplication 
of methods of transportation. Doubtless all 
these are nothing without the individual en- 
ergy that sets them in operation, but this energy 
is favored by circumstances. The reward is 
within the hand's reach; it is sure and does not 
delay its coming. Every one is certain that if 
he labors it will not be in vain, nor for a doubt- 
ful or tardy result. 

Hence this industrial fever, this headlong 
chase after the dollar. Hence these incessant 
changes and this multifold production. A rail- 
road is built, a station, around the station a 
few cheap houses, to-morrow it is a city, the 
day after to-morrow a metropolis. Monster 
cities, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Denver, are spon- 
taneous creations, sometimes almost artificial. 



AMERICA AND ITS EXISTENCE 33 

For that matter they are Httle other than work- 
shops and factories. Competition arises in the 
same or a neighboring city. Each manufac- 
turer must do better than the other, and better 
here means more and more rapidly. Therefore 
he is keen on the scent of the shghtest improve- 
ment; when he finds a simpler machine, suc- 
ceeds in doing away with a useless movement, 
he scraps the old and still useful machines, and 
puts in new that are almost sumptuous. He 
has gained a few minutes, and that is enough, 
for a little time means much money. 

Produce and replace; this is the rhythm of 
American industry, and also of American life, 
replacing products and the means of production. 
Automobiles are made by the hundred, in series, 
as in Europe not even bicycles are made. They 
are worth what they are worth, and they will 
last while they last — what matters how long.'^ 
Underselling, waste, they can afford; that is 
life; a life intensely external, so to speak, 
gushing out from every pore, extracted from 
oneself and spread all abroad. Production and 
consumption are multiplied at the same time, 
with no attempt to establish a cautious and 
petty equilibrium between the two; both are 
pushed to the extreme, to infinitude. 

This apparent disorder conceals an idea: to 



34 THE PEOPLE OP ACTION 

"^o alioad" more and more dariiii^ly; to dis- 
count the future while husthn^' and urging on 
the present. \N'o perceive, then, tlie direetlDU 
in which we must seek tlie AnuTican i(h'al: we 
shall find it in action and not in thoui^'ht. The 
attitude of the American is not that of the 
petisiero.to pursuing his inward dream, shutting 
himself uj) in his secret garden to in\ite and 
form his soul. It is that of the wrestler at grips 
with a reality that presses upon him on all 
sides, and which he has promised himself to 
master. He lives in a world, not of soothing 
dreams and enchanting illusions, hut of mud, 
of mire, of rubbish, which lie must knead with 
both hands if he would have it rise into material 
well-being and moral happiness. The task ap- 
pears most revolting; it is only the more noble. 
Perhaps it docs not satisfy high and vague in- 
tellectual aspirations, hut it puts into action 
the robust energies of the real man, tlie "com- 
mon man." ' To the European, who is too often 
merely the dilrttantc of thought, the American 
stands opposed as the j)ionccr of action. 

The appearance of the United States, i)ro- 
viding "the hapi)y oi)portunity to cn'ate a new 
civilization" in conditions most appropriate to 

• Woodruw Wilson, Thr .\nc Freedom. 



AMERICA AND ITS EXISTENCE 35 

its development, permitted the making of "a 
new human experiment." ^ The experiment has 
succeeded; the new man, if not formed, is at 
least in process of formation. 

What will he be.^ It is still in part a mys- 
tery, but whatever he may be, he will be of his 
time. To be of one's time, in this day, is not 
to delight oneself with adoration of a dead past, 
it is not even to pause in one's progress to enjoy 
the present. To be of one's time, in this day, 
is to be of to-morrow. To live is to anticipate 
the future; above all to create. 

More precisely, to live in this day is not to 
be. Life is before all things all action and 
mobihty. Contemporary life is no longer con- 
stituted, as formerly, under the category of 
being. Not that it abandons itself voluptu- 
ously to the flow of events, to an inconsistent 
and fluid becoming, like that which carried 
away old Heraclitus. On the contrary, it is 
energy and will. By that fact it is not stagna- 
tion; it thrusts out its feelers boldly toward 
all points, it radiates in every direction. It 
goes forward in an open universe, open to all 
winds, to every breeze, to every vivifying 
breath of air. It goes forward from all direc- 
tions, also, swarming from every point of the 

'76. 



86 THE PEOPLK OF ACTION 

horizon, flowing in by thousands, hv millions 
of tinnultuous personalities. William James has 
made us understand, or ratlier feel, this plural- 
ism. "One of the prineipal eharaeteristics of 
life is the superabundanee of life."^ The world 
increases, not all at once and in a l)Ioek, not 
according to the mechanical and regulated evo- 
lution of Spencer, but by an infinitude of special, 
independent acts, by numberless absolute be- 
ginnings and upspringings not to be foreseen, 
by bits and pieces, thanks to the contributions 
of its divers parts to each bit and piece.' Is 
not this tumult of life multiplied into infinitude, 
precisely the impression that America gives to 
whoever approaches or studies it ? 

In this sense America follows the very law of 
man, that by which he fully realizes his human- 
ity. "Make, and making, make oneself." It 
does not suffice, as has been said,' to symbolize 
the life of the American people by the ascent 
of an immense ladder. For they did not find 
a ready-made ladder, giving them nothing to 
do but climb; but in the very act of climbing 
they put the next rung in plfice, as the alpinist 
cuts steps in the ice, lifting himself as he may, 
holding on where he can, at the risk of l)reak- 

' William James. * lb. 

* Dc Ilousicrs, Im Vis .im&ricainf, p. 5. 



AMERICA AND ITS EXISTENCE 37 

ing his neck at each step of his ascent. The 
comparison is by so much the more just as the 
American finds hfe also a sport, a daring game, 
the object of which is only its occasion or its 
pretext. He does not look toward the end, as 
has been already said; he puts forth all his 
energy in the creation of the means. Each of 
these, when created, becomes in its turn a 
means of producing other means, as each peak 
when scaled is but the point of departure for 
another, higher or more difficult. The idea of 
an end, an object pursued, implies stability, 
pause. It is a European, not an American, idea. 
The European, when he has finished his work, 
rests, retires from business, and lives upon his 
income. The American never finishes his work, 
and never rests. He is not tending toward 
a purpose, for his sole purpose is to tend, to put 
forth all his strength indefinitely, unceasingly. 



CHAPTER II 

THE IXniVIDT'AL IDEAL 

THE AMERICAN AN INDIVIDUALIST. Bl'T NOT 

IXDIVIDUALIZKD. WILL RATHER TILW 

ISTKLLItiKME 

WITIIOrT paradox one might charac- 
terize the American hy saying that he 
is at once the most individuahstic and 
the least individuahzed of all men. He is the 
most individualistic, the freest in intention and 
in fact, the most emancipated from social con- 
straint. But this freedom of action has not 
yet made of him tlie complex, rich and ditFeren- 
tiated individual that we find among the peo- 
{)les of the ancient civilization, and of whom the 
Frenchman is the accomplished type. There is 
a uniformity of character and of taste in the 
United States that already impressed deToccjue- 
ville. "One would say, at first sight, that 
minds have all been formed upon the same 
model in .Vjnerica, so exactly do they follow the 
same routes."' At the present day this char- 
acteristic, though modified, markedly persists. 

' De la DimocratU en Amirique, II, p. 155. 
38 



THE INDIVIDUAL IDEAL 39 

Thus the remark of a great dressmaker of Paris: 
*'If I put a new gown upon the market, out of a 
hundred Parisian women who adopt it ninety- 
nine will have it modified; of a hundred Ameri- 
can women, ninety-nine will accept it just as 

it IS. 

It is a general law. The American proposes 
to realize his individuality freely and fully, but 
so long as he is master of his person and free to 
choose, he considers himself satisfied, willingly 
consenting that some other person, better quali- 
fied or more competent, should choose in his 
place. From the instant when he can do what 
he will, he easily wills what he is asked to will. 
He is let loose upon life like a colt in the pampas; 
like him he asks only to scamper and snort, 
taking without question whatever he finds on 
his way. His true joy is to live intensely rather 
than deeply. He goes, he is "a force that goes," 
without troubling himself to know where. We 
have discovered the key to his character in 
activity and not in intelligence, in the produc- 
tion of means rather than in the search of ends. 



40 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 



WEALTH 

The American a "money-maker." — Contempt of "ready-made" 
wealtli, dowry, inheritance. — Money tlie criterion of per- 
s^>nal worth. — Mtniey n<jt an object of enjoyment, hut a 
manifestation of power. — Daring of .\nierican capital. — The 
ideahzation of wcaltli. — Its moral action. — Its creative 
power. — Non-existence of the idle rich. — American pliilan- 
thropy. — Its utilitarian character. — Disintereste<lness of tlie 
very rich. — Voluntary sclf-imixjverishment. — "It is a dis- 
grace to die rich." 

Holding by tlii.s guiding thought, one finds 
the way to correct many mistaken idea.s; first 
of all, that which sees in the American only a 
"money-maker," a "dollar-hunting animal." 

Not that either of these expressions is wholly 
false. They are even rigorously true if taken 
literally, placing the accent on "maker" and 
not on "money," on "hunting" and not on 
"dollar." In the United States the well-nigh 
unique object is indeed to make money, but in 
no case to find money ready made. In the hunt 
for the dollar one is interested in the sport, 
the hunt, rather than in the game, the dollar. 
The latter is rather a trophy than a gain. As 
Tocqueville has said, in his desire to be rich 
"the American is not only acting upon calcula- 
tion, he is obeying his nature.'' ^ 

* De la Dimocratie en .Amhique, II, 155. 



THE INDIVIDUAL IDEAL 41 

Even more than this. There is no man in all 
the world who cares less for money as money. 
We find proof of this in the readiness with which 
he spends it. He simply despises our European 
habits of economy and simplicity, finding in 
them something petty, "mean." There are a 
thousand prodigals in America for one miser. 
*'They waste money." ^ They do not believe 
that money is made to be hoarded; it is made, 
in the first place, for the sake of making it, and 
in the next, for the sake of spending, and above 
all, of displaying it. 

It is made for the sake of making it. It 
must always be the product of effort, of an 
idea, of some sort of originality, and conse- 
quently it is tJie sign of personal worth or merit. 
But it must not be money picked up in the 
street. Americans never dream of winning the 
big prize in a lottery, and they refuse, not with- 
out scorn, the fortune that comes to them 
while they sleep. They refuse it in the form 
of which Europeans, and Frenchmen especially, 
are particularly fond — the dowry. It is true 
that a few daughters of billionaires cross the 
ocean to buy a ducal coronet with a husband 
thrown in; but such snobbery — for that is 
what it is — is the exception, even among the 

' Cf. dc Rousiers, La Vie AmSricaine, p. 323. 



42 TIIK PKOPLK OF A(TI()\ 

ricli. In any case if, strictly speaking, a woman 
soMU't lines hnys a husband, a man never sells 
liimself. At his own risk and peril h(» seeks 
for a wife, j)oor ichcn lir marries Jicr, whatever 
may he the fortune of her parents — a com- 
panion for life; he would hlush to think of her 
in the li.i,dit of a silent j)artner. 

The same is the case with inherited wealth. 
Of course a man does not refuse it when it 
comes, but he does not run after it. Less than 
in any other country can he be sure that it will 
come, in this land where no situation is assured, 
and fortunes are made and lost with dizzying 
rai)idity. For above all, the 3'oung American 
is accustomed to count only upon his own 
I)owers for his successes. No sooner is he old 
enough to take care of himself than he is ex- 
j)ecte(l, and it is his most ardent desire, to cre- 
ate for himself an independent situation, never 
to sponge upon others. "(iild(Ml youth" and 
"papa's sons" are hardly known in the United 
States. 

Wealth acquired otherwise than by one's per- 
sonal effort is actually deemed a blemish. To 
the American his fortune should be truly a part 
of himself, of his substance; he must have 
made it in some wise a part of his flesh and 
l)lood. If it be not his work, he becomes its 



THE INDIVIDUAL IDEAL 43 

slave. *'He is now what is called a rich man, 
that is, the valet and factotum of his wealth." ^ 
It is a menace to his liberty, threatening that 
which he has most at heart, his very reason for 
being; his personal dignity and independence. 

Money, in fact, is of no account to an Ameri- 
can except as it comes from himself and expresses 
the result of his successful activity. But when 
this is the case he proposes that this result shall 
be manifest, exhibited to all eyes. Therefore, 
once he has made it, he must spend it freely, 
ostentatiously, not only as a right, but almost 
as a duty, an obligation to himself. By a sense 
of personal dignity which takes on a form that 
seems strange to us, he owes it to himself to 
make himself respected. And money com- 
mands respect in the same proportion as it mani- 
fests power. Ostentation, in this artless form, 
thus takes on almost a moral character. It is 
a proof of effort and of success, a fine external 
manifestation of sovereignty. Money is a cri- 
terion; one is worth so many dollars. Among 
a nation of self-made tradesmen it is the mea- 
sure, the standard, of individual worth. 

But this is only the smallest use of money. 
It was made to be endangered, risked. It is a 
lever or a means. Mr. Gould, the multi- 

' Emerson, Essays, 



44 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

millionaire, said to M. Ilurot: "I do not work 
to make money, l)ut to inerease my power."" 
Two things may be demanded of money: either 
'pleasure or power. The citizen of the United 
States cares reliitively httle for pleasure. Ac- 
customed to a precocious and arduous life, he 
has little time to enjoy pleasure. Even had he 
the time he is only moderately equipped for 
its enjoyment. He is too young, he lacks that 
long i)ast of culture and refinement, and that 
ornate indolence of French and Italian courts 
in the time of the Renaissance, which among 
Latin peoples made the man of taste, the dihi- 
taJitCy the amateur of supple and unusual sen- 
sations. What he wants are strong, intense 
sensations, and he finds them in struggle and 
the expenditure of energy. "Our country calls 
not for the life of ease, but for the life of strenu- 
ous endeavor." ^ 

If the American exerts himself it is with the 
desire to shake himself free from the mass, to 
dominate. To plan colossal undertakings, to 
be the heart or the head, the vital principle of 
huge enterprises, is his ambition. The Frencli- 
man says to himself, "If I were King!" and he 
builds castles in Spain. The American exclaims, 

' Hunt. De Xnr-Vork 6 la Soutrlle-Orlfatu. p. iOS. 
* Housevcll, The Strcnuoiu Life, p. liO. 



THE INDIVIDUAL IDEAL 45 

"I will be King!" and he builds a factory in 
America. And if he happen to be successful 
he will, in fact, be a king, a petroleum king, 
steel king, railway king. The Frenchman in- 
vests his capital; the American ventures it. 
*'In this country money is the possibility of 
creation." ^ 

But to this end he must assume risks, and 
capital displays a hardihood which, if we may 
believe Mr. Carnegie, ninety-nine times out of 
a hundred leads to failure. He is face to face 
with the problem: "Given that the object is to 
gain money, what shall we do to gain more 
money .'^"^ This is, in fact, a question which 
no one dreams of discussing, which posits itself 
ahnost in the form of a categorical imperative. 
When Guizot said to the French bourgeoisie, 
"Make yourselves rich," he was simply giving 
advice. If he had been speaking to Americans 
he would have imposed upon them a precept. 
It is a duty to make a fortune in this land where 
wealth is the sole principle of admitted classi- 
fication, where, as Emerson has said, men fol- 
low after deeds, after success, not after talent, 
but where it must be conceded success pretty 
generally rewards talent. It is a duty to win 

' La France et les £tats-Unis. Address of M. Boutroux, p. 11. 
* Quoted by Iluret, op. cii., pp. i<Jl, i'Ji. 



46 TIIK PEOPLE OF ACTION 

the ra((\ to l)eat the record. '*Who has gone 
furthest? I would go farther," as Wliitinan 
siij)('rl)Iy said. 

Here is soiiietliing great, a sort of idealization 
of wealth. One can understand Toecjueville 
paying res[)ect to the enterprising .spirit of 
American shij)-owners. "The Americans put 
a .sort of heroism into their way of doing busi- 
ness/' ' Thus understood, wealth does not 
corrupt the individual, it makes him .sound, for 
it is only exceptionally, and over and above that 
he uses il for his personal .satisfaction. It is a 
sliimiiaiit that develops intelligence as much as 
it ulihzes energy. "Wealth is in applications 
of mind to nature; and the art of getting rich 
consists not in industry, nuich less in .saving, 
l)ut in better order, in timeliness, in })eing at 
the right sj)()t." - It is a question not of being 
rich, but of Jncom'nuj so; and for this the im- 
portant thing is to create the opportunity, or 
at least to seize it as it passes, bending all the 
powers of one's mind toward that natural power 
which gives it.self only to him who is able to 
tak(^ it. Making it his servant, man at the 
.sauH' tinu' emancipates him.self from the exi- 
gencies of nuitter and the yoke of other men. 

' De Tocqucvillp. oj>. nt., II. 41 i. 

* Eiuer.son, The Conduct of Life : IVeallh. 



THE INDIVIDUAL IDEAL 47 

It is in this masterful sense that we must un- 
derstand Emerson's words: "He is born to be 
rich;^ not to amass money, which is despicable; 
not to enjoy it, which is trivial; but to master 
himself in mastering it." The poor man, on the 
other hand, has only dependence and hmniha- 
tion. "Poverty demoralizes. In proportion to 
his indebtedness the debtor is a slave." ^ 

But this is still only a lower form of liberty — 
that which consists in breaking one's chains. 
There is another, higher and more fruitful, the 
liberty of action and production. The Ameri- 
can has worked in order to be rich; he keeps on 
working because he is rich. He does not look 
forward to the time when he shall "enjoy the 
fruits of his labor," by eating up his income; 
he throws his money into the furnace and him- 
self stirs the substance in the crucible. If he 
fails, he begins again; if he succeeds, success 
merely provides the opportunity for a new push 
forward. Fortune is no sinecure, and the rich- 
est men are the busiest. "It is impossible to 
work harder at being happy." ^ 

Consequently, there are in the United States 
no idle rich, that superfluity and plague-spot 
of older civiHzations. "Up to the present time 

' Ih., op. cit. ' lb., op. cit. 

* De Tocqueville, op. cit., p. 123. 



4d TIIK I'KOPLK OF A( TI()\ 

the race of men of leisure docs not exist in 
America; every one works." ' The wealthy 
American who chvsires to rest has only one re- 
source: to ^o to Kuroj)e, the blessed land of the 
dolcc far nicnic. Let him go to Paris or to 
Florence, for in \ew York or "Frisco" there is 
no room for him. All tho more surely there is 
none for his children. The latter will not be 
degenerates, for "the rich man's son is poor," 
or as good as poor. He sees in his father an 
example to follow, and if possible even to over- 
pass. It will be understood how, while recog- 
nizing that bad rich men do exist in America, 
as elsewhere, Mr. Roosevelt is able to maintain 
that, all things considered, "on the whole the 
thrifty are apt to be better citizens than the 
thriftless." ^ 

This ardor in the pursuit of wealth does not 
exclude generosity, care for those who suffer, 
but it transforms it. The two go togeth(T, and 
in America we find wliat may be calletl a dis- 
interested utilitarianism. A sense of practical 
realities is manifest in the benevolent enterprises 
of the most charitable persons. It seems en- 
tirely natural that when a philanthropist builds 
houses for working men his money should bring 

' llurct, op. cil., p. ill. ' Roosevelt, Amrrtcan IdraU. 



THE INDIVIDUAL IDEAL 49 

him six per cent,^ that when Doctor Keeley, in 
his *'Cure," regenerates the race by measures 
known only to himself, he should keep the se- 
cret that brings him millions.^ There is nothing 
sentimental in admiration of these proceedings; 
it is thought out and reasonable. In the first 
place it answers to the American's well-developed 
sense of justice; the benefactor reaps a legiti- 
mate reward, a legitimate profit, from his bene- 
factions. It follows that the profit reacts upon 
the benefaction itself, making possible an en- 
largement of its scope, at once useful and fruit- 
ful. In such examples we see to the life one 
of the essential features of American morality, 
the ends of justice blending with those of in- 
terest. 

It is true that there is still an aristocracy of 
wealth that does good without hope of return, 
men like Rockefeller, Carnegie, and many others. 
But their conduct springs from an analogous 
principle. Wealth, being an instrument of ac- 
tion, confers duties rather than rights, and the 
first of these duties is to make the most of one's 
tools. The directing class has a function to 
fulfil, it ought to "render service." ^ In this 
land of exaggerated individualism this class 
considers itself, and is considered, as more 

' Huret, op. cil.. p. 220. ' lb., p. iG8. ' Emersou, Essays. 



50 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

especially representing the collectivity, which 
is in some sort sujnnird uj) and ijichidcd in 
the strongest j)ersonalities. "Public spirit" is, 
above all, incarnated in the very rich. They 
consider themselves less as the owners than as 
the depositories of their wealth. They devote 
their resources to the creation of schools, uni- 
versities, libraries, hospitals, and charitable in- 
stitutions. They even extend their action be- 
vond the frontiers of their countrv. Tiiev rei)- 

«■ V V I 

resent first America, and then all humanity. 
These billionaires have, to a large degree, res- 
cued from famine the population of lielgium 
and the norlli of France. One of them, Mr. 
Carnegie, has lately given tens of millions of 
dollars toward the rehabilitation of the invadccl 
regions. 

They make this sacrifice intelligently, and are 
ready to make it completely. Intelligently, for 
their attenti\e charity, always alert, is nothing 
less than blind. It is not the philanthropy of 
the "free kitchen," which, sparing the cH'ort of 
the poor and the discernment of the benefactor, 
only prolongs j)overty, and proves that "in 
philanthropy, as in all other branches of human 
aclixity, lack of intelligence causes as many 
evils as hardness of licaii." ' It is an active 

' Roosevelt, American I dealt. 



THE INDIVIDUAL IDEAL 51 

collaboration of the rich with the poor, an at- 
tempt at relief by work.^ 

The gift may and would gladly be total. 
Let America to-morrow see the need of mobil- 
izing wealth, and these billionaires will give to 
their last dollar. Systematically and of their 
own free will such men as Rockefeller and Car- 
negie are working toward their own ruin. 
Money derived from labor should, in one form 
or another, be restored to labor. It is a law of 
conscience to impoverish oneself. Mr. Choate, 
formerly ambassador from the United States 
to London, said these words, so profoundly 
American in spite of appearances, and repeated 
after him by Mr. Wilson: "The benefit of this 
war is that it will impoverish us." 

It may be seen what remains, after analysis, 
of the common prejudice concerning the so- 
called hardness of the business man in the 
United States. Earnestness is not hardness. 
The Auvergnat dealer in second-hand goods, 
gathering up and hoarding, is hard in his pur- 
suit of profit; the master of industry in Denver 
or Philadelphia, who calls forth something from 
nothing, a world from a desert, is earnest in his 
pursuit of the dollar. For this dollar is creative, 
fife-giving. Wealth in America does not hide 

'76. 



52 THE PEOPLE OF AC TION 

itself in (lie woolirn stockirifj so dear to tho 
licarl of the French peasant. It is in tlie street, 
not in the bureau-drawer. It is in the clangor 
of niachines, the inunrnsity of factories, the 
equipment of scientific laboratories. It abounds, 
it (lows in from all sides, revolves in an incessant 
motion of to and fro. It seeks to be employed, 
and instinctively chooses the greatest risks, 
which are often the most rewarding. Born of 
energy, it creates energy. To be rich, for an 
American, is to be not a social parasite, but a 
social force. 

Above all, wealth does not reside in rich 
men, nor in groups of rich men; at least it is 
not essentially in these. ''America is as rich, 
not as Wall Street, not as the financial centres 
in Chicago and St. Louis and San Francisco; 
it is as rich as the people that make these cen- 
tres rich." ^ Toward these people we must 
now turn our eyes to find wealth at its source. 
Behind wealth, that indication, let us seek the 
individual who madr it. 

' Woodrow Wilson, The S'nc Freedom. 



THE INDIVIDLxVL IDEAL 53 

II 

LIBERTY 

The American meaning of liberty; emancipation and fullest 
realization of the individual. — 1. Independence: America 
an "open field" for all activities. — 2. Force: power of ex- 
pansion; struggle with destiny. — 3. Will: formation of 
cJiaracter, eflFort; America the land of "hard workers." — 
4. Well-being : moral discipline and freedom of the will. 

The individual, we say, and not the nation. 
In fact, the individual make.s the real .strength 
of the United State.s. It is the product of his 
ordered vigor, his ten.se will. Thus everything 
is subordinate to him — family, State, Union. 
He is the end to which all these divers organiza- 
tions are but the means. All things are designed 
to insure his full self-realization, but more than 
them all, he puts forth his own energies to this 
end. In this .sen.se his duty blends with his 
nature. lie wills to be all that he can be. His 
ideal is the highest possible realization of his 
personality. 

To his mind all is contained in the one word, 
liberty. But to this word he gives its fullest 
.sense. American liljcrty has not its equivalent 
in Europe; in Europe man is subject to too 
many external disciplines, held by too many 
inward prejudices. Like wealth, liberty is for 



54 THE PKOPLK OF ACTION 

liim ratlirr cnjoi/moil than j)()\v(r; ho seeks in 
it a sense of sceiirit.w of "surety," as our "Dec- 
laration of Ui<,'lils" has it, rather than an ele- 
ment of strenL,'th. The hherty tliat he asks for 
is that to wliieli the shive aspires, who would 
hreak his shackles; it is, more than au^ht else, 
impatience of the yoke miuLjled with the desire 
for a ]iapi)y life. Xow the American knows 
nothing' of the yoke; he shook it off at th(^ out- 
set ; nor does he know much al)out hai)i)iness, 
at least in the sense in which we understand it, 
I lie ease of a quiet life, the charm of long leisure. 
For him, life is hard and severe, it is a combat, a 
"struggle." To be free is to be a victor, affirm 
liis independence, create his "I." 

Such a liberty appears complex, and on anal- 
ysis resolves itself into many elements. Going 
from the more superficial to the more profound, 
it may be said that it implies four essential 
ideas: independence, strength, will, and well-being. 

Independence is In some sort the negative 
condition of liberty, and as Descartes said of 
indill'erence, its lowest degree. It signifies sim- 
ply the op(Mi road, the absence of obstacles. 
And this is what America willed and realized 
tirst of all. Its (listincti\'e mark among all na- 
tions is, as Mr. Wilson said, that it is a "free 
field," and not a "closed field." "America 



THE INDIVIDUAL IDEAL 55 

was set up that she iniglit be different from 
all the nations of the world in this: that the 
strong could not push the weak to the wall, 
that the strong could not prevent the weak 
from entering the race. America stands for 
opportunity. America stands for a free field 
and no favor," ^ no aristocracy, no privileged 
persons, each takes his chance. "America was 
created for the sole purpose of giving every man 
the same chance as every other man, to be 
master of his own fortunes." ^ Therefore no 
master, no guardian. 

But if the American asks for independence he 
also accepts it, wholly, courageously, with its 
obligations as well as its advantages. He does 
not refuse subjection in order to demand privi- 
leges. He asks nothing of authority. In France 
we mock at it but we secretly beg its favors. 
Punch beats the policeman, but demands a 
government position. The revolutionaries of 
1793 became the functionaries of Napoleon. 
In love with doled-out and peaceful pleasures, 
the Frenchman consents to have his hands half- 
tied, provided they are half-filled. His life, 
whether personal or political, is made up of com- 
promises. The American knows nothing of 
them, or despises them. He proposes to have 
his hands both free and full, that is, to be free 

* Woodrow Wilson, The New Freedom. ' lb. 



r>C> THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

to iill llieiii himsolf. He must have free play, 
I lie hreakneek life of tlie advent lucr. "With 
I lie American the iiistinet for freedom of iiiove- 
inent," some one has said, "goes along with 
freedom of activity and freedom of tlioii^dit." ' 
Tlie first commands the other two. It is charac- 
terized by im])etu()sity, violence; it is a rushing 
torrent, not a gently gliding rivulet. It may be 
recognized by a thousand indications: it numi- 
fests itself in the absence of ceremony, somewhat 
startling to the European police, of the Yankee 
who comes in noisily, kee})ing his hat on, puts 
his elbows on the tal)le, or his feet on the chim- 
neypiece; it appears in the exuberance of his 
I)hysical life, his love of sports, his journeys, his 
long cruises, his headlong automobile drives; 
it exj)lains his impetuous changes of plan — he 
l)uilds a home for his declining years and sells 
it before the scaflolding is down, he adopts a 
profession and abandons it. He must go through 
existence at his own free will, feeling himself 
bound by no tie, chained to no task. The need 
of change is the first manifestation of his need 
of liberty. 

But it is only an external manifestation, and 
athwart his independence we find strength. 
The American lias that extraordinary power of 

' La France ct Us £taU-UnU. .XdJrvaa of Wullcr V. Berry, p. IIS 



THE INDIVIDUAL IDEAL 57 

expansion which is the property of youthful 
peoples, full of sap, and which Europe does not 
know, or knows no longer. With us thought 
directs activity, while with him activity springs 
out of thought; it is only one of the forms, and 
by no means the most essential form, that ac- 
tivity takes on when it realizes itself. We ar- 
range, we regulate our lives; we map out for 
ourselves a plan of existence; our future com- 
mands our present. This is characteristic of 
reflective, cultivated, intellectual peoples. The 
American is not reflective, he is spontaneous like 
a force of nature. He is not cultivated, but 
rough hew^n, a vi\iid, cheerful creature who 
only asks to develop in his own way, and not 
to be toned down. Properly speaking, he is 
not intellectual; he has not ideas but impulses 
and flights of fancy. His life, therefore, is not 
ready-made, constructed in advance by his 
thought, as is ours. It will be what it will be, 
or rather what it will make itself, by fits and 
starts, falls and uprisings, catastrophes and tri- 
umphs. But it will always be a progress, a 
reahzation, without even turning back upon 
itself in an eff'ort at reflection, seeking to com- 
prehend itself. "The American looks upon 
life from the point of view of activity." ^ 

But his force, exerting itself, encounters other 

' Address of M. Boutroux, p. 7. 



58 THE I'KOPLK OF A(TI()\ 

forces, of men, of lliin<^'.s. "It is evcTywherc 
1)01111(1 or limitation." Will the torn'iit deviate 
from its course, or turn hack to its source? No, 
indeed ! The American accepts destiny and 
l(K)ks it in the face. Far from submitting to 
it, he ])r()poses to master it. "We must respect 
Fate as natural history, hut there is more than 
natural history." ' There is the ai)peal to all 
tlie resources of his Ix'in^, ])hysical and mental, 
lo the hardening of his body, which grows 
tougher under fatigue and suffering, to that 
sagacity of mind which searches out useful re- 
actions and opportune repartee. Unceasingly 
the impulse of choice and of action gushes up 
from the soul. Intelligence commands the in- 
evitable,- and under the blows of his repeated 
experiences, his successes, and his cliecks the 
American becomes virile. The impetuous j'oung 
aiiiiiKi! becomes the man who masters himself. 
Strangely enough, the creature of impulse be- 
comes not a reflective but a tenacious man. 

Thus force is transformed into will. "There 
can be no dri\ing force except Ihrough [\\r con- 
N'ersion of the man into his will, making him the 
will and the will him." ^ We no longer see 

' Emerson, The Conduct of Life : Fate. 

' lb. » lb. 



THE INDIVIDUAL IDEAL 50 

mere energy; henceforth we have before us a 
character. 

It first manifests itself by the faculty of de- 
cision. It is not enough to will, nor even to 
will well — one must will quickly. Life does not 
wait, and the hesitating are left in the rear. 
The important thing is to judge of a situation 
at a glance and decide upon one's action, to 
"plunge into a decision." ^ Those who err 
are worth more than those who lag behind, for 
the former can repair or modify their mistakes; 
the latter will never catch up. "In the course 
of business you must come to a decision; the 
best, if you can, but a decision of any sort is 
better than none." ^ One must be able to "de- 
cide at a moment's notice." ^ One is amazed 
to see with what rapidity, with a word, a tele- 
phone message, a stroke of the pen, the most 
colossal business matters are proposed, ac- 
cepted, regulated. 

Determination once reached, execution must 
follow, and at the shortest notice. It is the era 
of difficulties. The weak blame destiny and 
give up. The American is no weakling and he 
persists. "Let him hold his purpose as with 
the tug of gravitation. No power, no per- 
suasion, no bribe shall make him give up his 
» lb. « lb. » 76. 



00 TIIK PKOPLK OF ACTIOxN 

poinl."' \\y infU'xihlt' rosoliition man comes 
to inastor [\w forces of nature, fo Iransforin 
these (lemons into ^oils. New proMems arc 
posited every moment. To take l)ut one exam- 
ple, we know those unexpected and apparently 
insoluMe problems which .Vmerican en^nncvrs 
encountered when constructing the Panama 
Canal. In another order of ideas, we know 
the etl'orts of President Wilson to win over 
his country to the idea of ititervention, and, 
above all, to conscription. Hut the canal was 
dug, and ten millions of possible soldiers are 
inscribed to-day and, if necessary, will be en- 
listed and drilled to the last man. The Fnited 
States find at home "that class of afhrma- 
tive men" that "conceive and execute all great 
things." - 

And all is done by this ardent but .self-con- 
t.iined nation with a self-possession, a "self- 
control" which conunands respect. While lead- 
ing an "exciting" life, it permits nothing to 
ai)pear outside, is firm before a check, tran(|uil 
before success; it wavers — but only within. 

And let no one imagine that this is the ca.se 

with a few exceptional natures endowed with 

clearer perceptions and an uncommon force of 

will. Such as these no doubt generally go fur- 

' lb. » 76. 



THE INDIVIDUAL IDEAL Gl 

ther. But they sLrnply carry to a higher degree 
the fundamental quahties of the race; they dif- 
fer from the mass only in degree, not in nature. 
If America is great, and growing greater, it is 
the deed of all, not of a few. "A nation is as 
great, and only as great, as her rank and file." ^ 
It is '*the common man," "the average man," 
who in the narrow sphere in which he toils, 
and which by his effort he more or less enlarges, 
obtains, or more correctly, laboriously compels, 
these results. "It is the great body of toilers 
that constitute the might of America." ^ 

America is the land of toilers; this is its true 
physiognomy. The millionaire himself is the 
poor toiler of yesterday who in the rich toiler 
of to-day continues to toil. The toiler is he 
who has faith, not a facile and passive faith in a 
lucky chance, but an active faith in his own 
strength and will. He knows that he may not 
count upon chance unless he abets it. He knows 
that a man's fortunes are "the fruit of his 
character,"^ and that success is a function of 
merit and effort. "We do not admire the timid 
man of peace, we admire the man of victorious 
effort."^ Should it prove useless, effort must 
still be put forth. "It is hard to fail, but it is 

' Wfxxirow Wilson, The Sew Freedom. * lb. 

* Emerson, The Conduct of Life. * Roosevelt, The Slreniunu Life. 



62 THK IM:0PLK OF ACTION 

worse never to have tried to sueceed. In this 
hfe we succeed in ii()tliin<^' without effort."' 
Woe to the men and the peopk's irJio huvc no 
histonj, to those who hiive not truly hved, who 
have draf;<;ed tlieniselves alon^' "in the gray 
twihght that knows neither victory nor de- 
feat."^ The American has a history; his hfe, 
made u}) of successive audacities, perpetual de- 
fiances of destiny, is a game in which the in- 
variable stakes are difficulties. It is neither 
resignation nor expectation; it revolts against 
constraint, it goes ahead of facts, and some- 
times even of possibilities. The word "impossi- 
ble" is not American. .Vmerica's history is the 
product of her liberty. 

From the moment when a man acts, not with 
that deficient freedom which consists in not 
being opposed or molested, but witii a properly 
efficient freedom by which he proposes to realize 
all the powers of his being, a moral element 
enters into action. "When the Americans speak 
of freedom they speak only of freedom for self- 
develoj)ment, for useful activity, for rising." ' 
And such a fretnlom not only is reconciled with 
the it lea of discipline, it implies and demands it. 
' lb. ■ ih. 

• I)«" Ht)U.siiTS, Prffat"e to the Frfiicli IruatlnLiun of The Strenuotu 
Life, p. xiii. 



THE INDIVIDUAL IDEAL 63 

It is the liberty of well-doing , or rather, the liberty 
to duty. 

Thence arise all those restrictions that over- 
turn our European and especially our French 
conception of liberty. We find it difficult to 
accept things that are contrary to our tastes and 
incommode our habits. The /Vmerican has few 
tastes and no habits; the things that he cannot 
endure are things that put an obstacle in the 
way of his initiative. But these people, so 
jealous of their independence, yield without a 
murmur to all sorts of puritan restrictions, 
liquor laws, Sunday laws, etc., which are still 
in vigor in certain States of the Union. The 
Frenchman would rather die of drink than im- 
pinge upon the privileges of the wine-growers. 
On the other hand, the constant meddling of 
the administration in the thousand details of 
industrial and agricultural production would 
not be tolerated in the United States, for it 
would seem to paralyze action. The American 
will consent to the restriction of his enjoyments 
so long as his activities are unhindered; the 
Frenchman tolerates interference with his ac- 
tivities provided the doors of the cafe and the 
cinema are left open. 

Again, American liberty is a "jealous liberty," 
permitting draconian prohibitions with regard 



64 Tin: iM.oiM.i: of action 

to oIIhts; strict protection closing the ports to 
products of forei^'M industry, i)itilcss measures 
a^'aiiist Chinese innnii^ration, or tliat of "un(l(»- 
sirahles." Selfishness, all this, no douht, hut 
an intelli^cFit and in its way mora! selfishness. 
What the American proposes to protect is 
American energy, which would he weakened, 
American initiative, which would he eliecked, 
by an influx of eheaj) lahor or of worthless or 
useless men of no value to the country. Amer- 
ica refuses liberty to injure, tolerating only lil)erty 
to act and to produce. Liberty must have pro- 
ductiveness as a corollary. The unproductive, 
a fortiori the destructive, have no right to exist- 
ence, and still less to admission. 

That there is narrowness and a degree of in- 
justice in this conception is certain. It may be 
too facile and too rigid. While it is hard upon 
the weak, it often risks appearing ill judged and 
tiictless, of shutting out forces that are of an- 
other order and perhaps even on a higher level. 
But its intent is pure. American liberty, which, 
as has been shown, draws its inspiration from 
the gospel, and whose "deep roots . . . draw 
their nourishnuMit from the general substratum 
of the American spirit,"' is for men of good-will, 
and will is good only wlu^n it is strong, daring, 

' lb., op. rit., p. XV, 



THE INDIVIDUAL IDEAL 05 

creative. Furthermore, it is justified by its 
works; it has made a free America. 

It is a joyful, li^'ht-hearted, and productive 
liberty, of whicli JVesidcnt Wilson speaks, 
deeming it still iniijcrfeetly realized, hut extol- 
ling it in terms like these: Is not this the highest 
idea that you could form of liberty — that it is 
that which relieves men and women of all that 
weighs upon them, and prevents them from being 
and doing their best, which frees their energy 
and carries it to its utmost limit, which emanci- 
pates their aspirations to a limitless extent, 
and which fills their minds with the great joy 
which is born of the realization of hope?^ 

What practical use will the American make 
of this liberty ? And by what means will he 
set it to work? 

' Woodrow Wilaon, The New Freedom. 



(Hi THE PF.OrLK OF ACTION 

III 

EDUCATION 

iLs virllr clinrartiT. — 'It admits of risk. — ResjKvt for tlu* t-hiM's 
libt'rty.- Mitral ttjiuilily ot part'iiLs uiui cliihlri'n.- — The 
Anu'riran itiucatiDtial si/sleni.--lls prat-tit-al iharat'trr. — 
CuUurf siuTififtHl to utility. — AuuTicaii scit'iK-e.— Lillle 
tluHiry, l)ul rt'sults. 

First of all, liberty penetrates edueation. The 
latter, in .Vnu'rica, is inspired with a spirit 
diametrieally oppo.sed to that of Franee. With 
us tiie (jiiestion is to make life pleasant to the 
ehild. with them to make it free, and therefore 
useful. The Freneh boy, coddled, indulged, is 
brought up, so to speak, scntimcutdlli/, in an 
anxious, apprehensive atmosphere that would 
remove every pebble from his path. The residt 
is a sprightly, dainty, often i)reeoei()Us child, 
but caj)ricious, petted, wilful, and without will; 
his mind open to things of the intellect, but ill 
adapted to serve the purposes of a man of action. 
In the United States his training is virile, with 
apparent indifference to, but a truer respect for, 
his moral personality: he is, above all, taught 
to rely upon himself, in .some sort to detach 
liijns(»lf from his parents instead of clinging to 
them. .Vinrrican parents do not live for their 
child in I he sense in which wc in I'Vance under- 



THE IXDIVIDIAI. IDKAL 67 

stand the term; he is not the exclusive object 
of their preoccupations; they live first of all for 
themselves. Not that they love him less; they 
love him otherwise, and in spite of appearances, 
with a perhaps less selfish love, seeking above 
all else to make of him a person, a self-governing 
being. 

In the first place, American education, like 
American life, admits of risk. When the boy 
finds obstacles in his way, it is for him and none 
other to remove them. Accustomed from his 
earliest years to travel, to cross the ocean, he 
learns how to meet physical difficulties. Little 
creatures of six and eight years, playing freely 
on the deck of a transatlantic, lean over the 
nettings, risking their lives, unwatched by 
mother or nurse. Accidents are none the more 
numerous — quite the contrary. Obliged to be 
on their guard against danger, warned by pre- 
cocious experience, the boy instinctively ac- 
quires useful reflexes, suppleness of body, sure- 
ness of eye, which almost invariably enable him 
to ward off danger at an age when the French 
child, relying upon the help of others, is helpless 
in the face of danger when by chance he is de- 
prived of such help. An Ajnerican boy of eleven 
will go to the bank to cash his mother's check 
for a thousand dollars, as among us he would go 



08 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

on an (Train 1 to tlie grocer's or the dairy. And 
if you should express fear of intrusting him with 
so large a sum at his age, his parents would be 
amazed at your apprehensions.' 

More than tliis. At a very early age the 
child appears to be master of his conduct. He 
receives counsels, but not commands. Without 
being punished he is put on guard against the 
consequences of his acts. A lad of twelve, be- 
lieving himself to })e the victim of injustice on 
the part of the master, declares that he will 
never again set foot in the .school. His father 
neither entreats nor threatens him, as doubtless 
he would do in France. "Just as you like; but 
have you well considered what you would lose 
in giving up study .^" Whereupon the boy de- 
liberates within himself, and finally decides to 
return to .school. \o line of conduct has been 
imposed upon him; the terms of the problem 
liave simply been stated to him, leaving to him 
the business of solving it. 

American education is governed by the two- 
fold principle of resj)ect for personal liberty and 
that sentiment of equality which naturally fol- 
lows in its train. The child is treated as a free 
man, and he treats himself as such, lie is 
told — and he soon learns to .say to himself, 

' CJ. dc UousicTs, 7,(1 I'ic Amiricainr. pp. 407 jf. 



THE INDIVIDUAL IDEAL 69 

not "Act as you think best, do as you please," 
but "Act on your own responsibility, do as you 
will." The best way of substituting will for 
caprice is to instil into the child from his earli- 
est years a sense of full responsibility. He knows 
from the first that his decisions depend upon 
himself alone, that they will neither be dictated 
nor suggested to him; that as a natural result 
he must endure all the consequences of his de- 
cisions; that no paternal or maternal hand will 
be extended to remove from his path the ob- 
stacles which he has himself heaped up before 
himself. He stands face to face with his acts 
as a business man before a venture which is 
proposed to him. "Will it pay.'^ Will it re- 
sult in loss.'^" It is a pragmatic conception of 
education, well adapted to develop at once 
prudence and firmness. After a few unhappy 
experiences the child will take the desired bent, 
and will run no risks without full knowledge. 
Moreover, he is treated by his parents not as 
an inferior, but as an equal. "In America, the 
family, in the Roman and aristocratic signifi- 
cance of the word, docs not exist." ^ The author- 
ity of the paterfamilias is unknown. The father 
is the child's counsellor and guide, not his mas- 
ter. The child feels himself to be protected 

' De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, II, p. 2£3. 



70 THE l»EOPLE OF A(TK)\ 

without being undor tutelage. There are not 
two lines of conduct, one for "grown persons" 
and another for children. The American family 
is a society, or more correctly, an association of 
equals; each in his rank and on his level, ac- 
cording to his age and strength, plays his part 
as collaborator. The child receives the impres- 
sion — at first faint, but soon pretty well defined 
— of participation in the common life. Thence 
he develo])s a very vivid sense of personal dig- 
nity. He is not asked to obey, but to under- 
stand and to act. He will therefore show more 
confidence, more frankness, than an adulated 
and yet subordinated child in a French family. 
In the latter we too often observe a spirit of dis- 
simulation, or at least of furtiveness — something, 
let us admit, of the mentality of the slave, who 
finds secrecy to be a means of partly escaping 
from his master; he fears to be scolded far more 
than he expects to be guided; while the young 
American, on the other hand, feels a real desire 
to ask counsel of this experienced comrade, this 
knowing friend, whom he finds in his father. 
And family feeling, less demonstrative, less in- 
timate, perhaps, in a certain sense, is not less 
strong. It is inspired by a nnitual respect of 
which we, perhaps, know too little. 

In fact, there are no children in America. 



THE INDIMDUAL IDEAL 71 

The child is already a man. And he acts like 
a man. Huret, in the course of his journey, 
visited a boys' club in San Francisco, whose 
president was fourteen years old, the members 
being from twelve to sixteen.^ He was struck 
by their serious behavior, the absence of trifling, 
of fooling, so to speak. At all times the Ameri- 
can boy looks upon life as a serious thing; he 
treats it as a business, never taking it lightly or 
as a joke. He is at once younger and less a 
child than a French boy. He is younger, with 
more spontaneity, freshness, artlessness, and 
also with more purity. He is certainly less 
precocious than we are; like the English boy, 
at eighteen he often seems to be fifteen, with 
the wondering candor which often brings a 
smile to the lips of his better-informed comrade 
overseas, whose intelligence is more developed, 
more sophisticated. But he is less a child, more 
ready to take hold of life with courage and de- 
cision. "He must know how to work and how 
to play vigorously. He must have a clear mind 
and a clean life," ^ said Mr. Roosevelt, in 1900. 
In fact, he knows better how to play than our 
boys do; witness the matches between Harvard 
and Yale, as celebrated as those between Ox- 

' Huret, De San Franruico a Canada. 

* Quoted by LaDoelon^nie, Un tour du monde. p. 344. 



fi 



THE PEOPLE OE ACTION 



ford and Camhri(l<;t', and in whicli hv j)iils forth 
a daring energy. But he also works better and 
at an earlier age. He can leave his country, 
make the tour of Europe and of lh»' world at 
an age when, in Erance, he is still crouching 
under his mother's petticoats. He goes straight 
ahead, with that clear if somewhat short-sighted 
vision, that rectitude of manner and judgment 
hy which he stoutly confronts life, wlien our 
hoys, after long years of study, are still seeking 
their way. 

He also brings to it courage. "A l)oy needs 
at once physical and moral courage," under pain 
of being "only a half-power." ^ He has both, 
and consequently is a full power. He has hard- 
ened his muscles and disciplined his nerves by 
the ])ractice of "football," "baseball," and other 
rough games. He has disciplined his will by 
learning that he must de])end upon himself and 
not upon the support of his family. The Ameri- 
can boy and girl expect nothing from their 
parents. They would be ashamed to ask, she 
a dowry, he an establislunent in l)usiness, to 
have life made for them instead of making it 
for themselves. If our children are often in- 
telligences, theirs are always characters. At a 
bound, on leaving school, they leaj) into life. 

• lb., p. su. 



THE INDIVIDUAL IDEAL 73 

"In America there is, strictly speaking, no 
adolescence. From his earhest years the man 
appears and begins to make his way for him- 
self."^ 

The American educational system is naturally 
adapted to the temperament of the pupil. It 
starts with this training in liberty, "self-gov- 
ernment." On the whole it is simple, prac- 
tical, the same for all, and of brief duration. 
It is designed to make men and not "scholars," 
and to make the most men in the shortest pos- 
sible time. It goes straight to its object. 

These characteristics, but little modified at 
the present day, impressed Tocqueville. "Even 
their acquirements partake in some degree of 
the same uniformity. I do not beheve that 
there is a country in the world where, in pro- 
portion to the population, there are so few igno- 
rant and at the same time so few learned indi- 
viduals. Primary education is within the reach 
of everybody; superior instruction is scarcely 
to be obtained by any."^ Things have changed 
in the sense that numerous and splendid uni- 
versities have been founded. But the higher 
education there dispensed does not differ in 
spirit from primary education; it simply pro- 

» Ih., p. 324. ' Dc Tocqueville, op. cit., I, 65. 



74 TIIK TKOrLK OF A( TION 

longs and completes it. The purpose remains 
the same, to f^ive useful notions. 

The American concerns himself l»ut little 
with culture, considering it a luxury good for a 
few dilettanti, })ut whicii does not "pay." and 
which, as such, appears soiuewliat sus|)icious 
to the positive Yankee mind. Knowledge for 
the sake of knowledge schmhs to him not worth 
while. He would almost rej)roach it for re- 
tarding progress by lingering over chimeras, 
instead of welcoming it and laying hold upon 
its realities. Even truth ought to he "instru- 
mental" ' and serve us as a mount " uj)on which 
to ride by way of cxpt^riiMice in .search of dis- 
coveries that may contribute to pliysical well- 
being and moral betterment. Education is only 
a means, not an end, it is an accessory or an 
auxiliary which has no value in itself. It is 
simply expected to provide man with a baggage 
of useful information, strictly sufficient to pre- 
vent his iKMUg held back in his progress. More 
than elsewhere universal education is necessiiry 
in a country where there are no ready-made 
careers, and ev(Ty one needs a "kit of intellec- 
tual tools" which will enable him to adapt him- 
.self to the various exigencies with which he 
may find him.self confronted. But lie does not 

' William James, Pragmaiism. * lb. 



THE INDIVIDI AL IDEAL 75 

propose to encumber himself with superfluous 
trifles, especiafly not with that hterary and 
artistic cultivation which properly belongs to 
gilded idleness. He must leave school with a 
practical and supple intellect, and thorough ac- 
quaintance with a sufficient number of elemen- 
tary notions. As time goes on he will acquire, 
according to need, the technical knowledge 
special to a given situation, either in the ap- 
propriate institute, or more often in the shop 
or the office. 

Nearly all passing through the same primary 
school, subjected to the same American disci- 
pline, children find the few differences levelled 
which might still remain between them, and it 
is in school, above all, that they become "Amer- 
icanized." "The great melting-pot of America, 
the place where we are all made Americans of, 
is the public school, where men of every race 
and every origin and of every station in life 
send their children, or ought to send their chil- 
dren, and where, being mixed together and in- 
fused with the American sjjirit, the youngsters 
are developed into American men and American 
women." ^ 

In this sense the model American pupil is the 
American savant. lie is a sort of superior work- 

' WockItow Wilsou, The Sew Freedom, p. 97. 



76 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

man, an artisan of gonius. TIrtc are few pure 
tlieorists in the United States; they have not 
I)r()(lu('<Ml a Descartes, a Leibnitz, a Newton, 
vast synthetic minds arriving at a general con- 
ception of the universe, a method tluit revohi- 
t ionizes science. Hut they give l)irtli to an 
Edison, that is to say, to an empirical creator. 
He is not a mathematician, he does not align 
ecpiations, does not find the universe at the end 
of his calculations. But he observes, he ferrets 
out, he delves, he experiments, he mingles, he 
twists and untwists his threads; he is a brain 
occupying itself with visions rather than with 
ideas. Genius itself, in America, lacks .spread 
of wings; its sight is short and immediate; it 
knows not how to wait, it must realiz(\ Huret 
well perceived this characteristic. "What they 
seek," he says, speaking of American inventors 
and men of research, "is abstractions verified 
by palpable realities. They understand only 
with their eyes."' 

Which is to say that though the American 
may be an idcali.st he is almost never a conccp- 
tudli.st. "The American mind shuns general 
ideas; it never addresses itself to theoretic re- 
search." ^ "The American mind has very clear 

' Iliirot, De SeuhYork h la Sourrlle-OrUant. 

* De Tocqucvillf, Democracy in America, II. pp. 20, 41, pastim. 



THE LNDIVIDUAL IDEAL 77 

but very limited notions of things and ideas. 
It never generalizes, for generalization requires 
meditation, and we are considering a nation 
of men of action."^ Not that he is without 
imagination, but his imagination is at once con- 
crete and schematic; it clearly shows him things, 
and in things their elements, their more or less 
ingenious modes of combination, the mecha- 
nism that brings them together and makes 
them work; but though imagination may an- 
alyze, it never transcends vision. It analyzes, 
at need it amplifies, but it lacks wings. America 
can produce an Edgar Poe, but not a Victor 
Hugo. " Practical sense . . . dominates fancy.'* ^ 
In the field of science the American imagination 
invents new mechanisms, but it formulates no 
new system. 

The American educational system feels the 
effect of this. It is complete but limited. It 
consists almost exclusively of concrete notions, 
of facts rather than ideas, or of ideas suggested 
by facts, and making use of them. As with 
science, teaching is a business, and to be a good 
business it must pay. 

• Huret, op. cit., p. 93. 

' Lea Etata-Unii ei la France. Address of M. Boutxoux, p. 9. 



78 Tin: I'KorLE of action 

IV 

THE M.\N 

A poor man wlio aspires to l>e rich. — His cnorffj'. — His faculty 
of atlaptation to any task. — The "husincss man." — Tlie 
strenuous life. — The .sen.se of opjuyrtunity. — S<'lf-<-onfidence. 
— Incomplete hut powerful life of the .\meriean. — The niy.s- 
tieism of activity. 

AVliat .sort of mail comes forth from siuli a 
school? A man j)r('j)ar(Ml to face, or rather, to 
defy hfe. To iiiulerstand liim one must take 
account })otli of his starting-point and of the 
object wliich he propo.ses to attain. He is a 
poor man who (Lspircs to become rich. 

A poor man, whatever his origin, and it l)e- 
hooves him not to forget it. De Roiisiers ad- 
mires *'this ingenious mechanism wliich con- 
strains the son of a millionaire to eat his l)read 
in the sweat of his hrow." ' Emerson, with his 
characteristic pungent vigor, strongly brings 
out this trait: 0//r coiuilrij is a counfry of 
poor men; the human race has spread abroad 
upon this continent to do justice to it.self; all 
men are ifi shirt-sleeres: they put on no airs 
like the poor rich of the cities, who desire to 
pass them.selves off as rich, but they take off 
their coats and work hard when labor is sure to 
bring in returns,^ 

' Dc Rou.sior.s, La I'lV Amfricaitir, p. i\i. * EmcrsoD, Etsayi. 



THE INDIVIDUAL IDEAL 79 

Again, this poor man is straightforward; he 
has not beliind him a long past of glory, military, 
artistic, scientific, or literary, opening a perspec- 
tive to his activity, or impelling it in various 
directions. He has no model outside of himself, 
and he finds few ideas within himself. He there- 
fore naturally sets before himself the one object 
conceivable for a man whom nothing, either 
within or without, deflects from a certain course: 
the making of money. Wealth is the one idea 
of men who have no ideas. "Why do men 
desire to become rich '^. Solely from the absence 
of ideas. We are first without thought, and 
then we discover that we are without money." ^ 

Finally, he has the contagion of example. 
Everything around him invites him to hunt 
the dollar. "Here a living is so easily, so 
abundantly earned. Easily because it suflSces 
to love work; abundantly because every effort 
is rewarded without parsimony." ^ He knows 
that there is room for all, and that every effort 
is certain of its result. He has seen not many 
individual successes, but "states in some sort 
improvised by chance."^ Often such states 
have been the work of one man, or of a handful 
of men. A railway is planned, a station built, 

« ih. 2 76. 

• De Tocqueville, De la D6mocratie en AmSrique, I, 82. 



80 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

and around it arc grouped a few wooden shan- 
ties. At once electric cars are running in streets 
barely blocked out, but lighted with arc-lamps; 
a bank is built, and a church. That force of 
attraction that emanates froin a superior will 
draws to itself and to the barely sketched proj- 
ect other wills, less powerful l)ut not less ar- 
dent, that circle in its orbit. Thus were founded 
New Bedford, Lynn, and many another city. 
They were the work of one man, they would 
not have been if he had not been, they would 
have been elsewhere if he had so willed. "Each 
of these men, if they were transparent, would 
seem to you not so much men as walking cities, 
and wherever you put them they would build 
one." ' Our young American says to himself: 
"I will be that man." And he does his best 
to be such a man. 

He finds added stimulant in his personal 
activity, and in the education that he has re- 
ceived. In his activity because, for him, the 
important thing is to be busy; to work while 
travelling, while eating, one would almost say, 
while sleeping. He Hves in express-trains, 
changes cars ten times a day, sleeps in a "Pull- 
man" to save time, is always hanging over the 
telephone or the telegraph, no sooner finishes 

' Emerson, The Conduct of Life : Faie. 



THE INDIVIDUAL IDEAL 81 

one thing than he begins three others. He is 
hke an Enghshman who should know neither 
"home" nor "hohday." They are all like this, 
"a race saturated with electricity, hurrying 
along at top speed, and whose ideal appears 
to be the paroxysm." ^ 

Furthermore, his education, elementary, hasty, 
and overloaded, has prepared him for all sorts 
of works without especially fitting him for any 
one. He would easily have become an excellent 
specialist on any, for he has an aptness for 
detail and precision, but he is generally indif- 
ferent to specialization, and ready to accept 
any occupation. "His capacity is more gen- 
eral, the sphere of his intelligence is larger," ^ 
but he is not more interested in any one system 
of operations than in any other; "he is no more 
bound to the old method than to the new; lie 
has formed no habits." ^ Now a profession is a 
habit, and the most inveterate of all habits. 

The American has no profession. He passes 
with a haste disconcerting to us from one busi- 
ness to another, wholly different. "Last year 
I was an engineer; this year I shall be a jour- 
nalist." "* The following year he will, perhaps, 
be a gold-seeker, a farmer, or a banker. Were 

* Huret, De New-York d. la Noutelle-OrUans, p. 322. 

2 De Tocqueville, op. dt., II, 415. » lb., II. 415, 416. 

* De Rousiers, La Vie AmSricaine, p. 621. 



8« THE PEOPLE Ol- A( TION 

lio to do {\\v sainr thini; for Iwcniy years, tlie 
twenty-first Iw could with perfect ease sliift 
his gun to the other shoulder, and engage in an 
entirely new enlerj)rise. 

This inconstancy is, howi^'er, only ai)i)ar- 
cnt, and unity of direction is found through 
diversity of ocTupations. At hottoin, all Ameri- 
cans practise the same profession, that of the 
**business man," the promoter of alFairs; and 
this profession includes all the others. The 
newspaper-hoy on the train is a hnsiness man. 
Edison inventing a way to ward off suhmarine 
torpedoes is a business man. Even President 
AVilson, at the same time head of the army, 
dil)lomatist, and superintendent of agricidture, 
is a business man. 

The business man may be recognized by two 
characteristics: the limited character of each 
of his undertakings, and the facility with which 
he adapts himself to new conditions. These 
two characteristics are found in all Americans. 

1. They engage in business. Each under- 
taking, by itself considered, is a special opera- 
tion, sufficient in itself; it is held to produce 
the maximum of results in the minimum of 
time. Once organized it gives no more con- 
cern, and the head passes on to another. And 



THE INDIVIDUAL IDEAL 83 

so on indefinitely. There is, therefore, not so 
much a continuity of effort as a succession of 
multiplied efforts which need not so much to 
be co-ordinated as to be continually renewed. 
The life of the "business man" does not de- 
mand unity, at least externally; it can occupy 
itself, and it is interested in occupying itself, 
along as many different lines as his activity 
can devise, construct, and carry on. It em- 
braces a series of almost instantaneous presents 
or very near futures; it is an addition, a totali- 
zation, a juxtaposition of parts. Why should 
he have a "calling," that is to say, narrow the 
sphere of his activity and limit its profits.'^ 

2. As a result, the novelty of an enterprise is 
to the business man not an obstacle but an at- 
traction. He does not remind himself that he 
knows nothing about it, but rather tells him- 
self that he is capable of adapting himself to 
it. Not being cramped by routine, he sees in 
a new line of undertaking only new and larger 
possibilities of success, and all the more that 
he does not, like the European, live in a closed 
circle in which to-day is as yesterday, and 
to-morrow, to all appearance, will be but the 
copy of to-day. "The American lives in a 
world of progress; everything around him is 
ceaselessly changing, and each movement ap- 



84 TIIK PKOrLi: OK ACTION 

pears to be a progress. The idea of tlie new is 
in liis mind intimately allied to the idea of the 
better." ' He therefore eonsents willingly to 
change the direction of liis effort if he sees 
reason to believe that he will find more favor- 
able opportunities in another career. To be 
keen on the scent of opportunity and to seize 
it wlien it presents itself — all America is in this 
thought. "America is opportunity," said Em- 
erson, and opportunity presents itself everywhere 
in a new country, "opportunity of time, of con- 
jecture, of place." " The thing is to know how 
to profit by it, and in tliis the young American 
is not found wanting. 

He is guided by a twofold faith: he has faith 
in success, and above all he has faith in himself. 
He has faith in success — sometimes, indeed, too 
blind a faith. "The Americans pursue facts 
. . . th(\v pursue succes.9, not talent." ' This 
is because success is the sign of talent, and for 
them a sign that never deceives. If they care 
for titles, for decorations, for a conspicuous 
name, and, above all, for money, which in the 
country of the dollar consecrates titles, decora- 
tions, and names, it is because in money they see 
the proof, and tlie only i)r()()f which counts to 

' Do Tocqupvillp. op. rit., II, p 410 

' I^t f^laU-Vnui ct la Frarur. .Xtldress of Waller V. Rom-, p. Ii3. 

• Emerson, Easayi. 



THE INDIVIDUAL IDEAL 85 

them, the material, visible, tangible proof of 
inward worth. Money is only a eriterium, but 
it is an infallible and indispensable eriterium. 
An unsuccessful effort is a blameworthy effort; 
an unsuccessful man is an incompetent man. 
Genius may not dwell in a garret; it must choose 
a palace for its home. 

Therefore, one ought to succeed; but the 
American is convinced that he can succeed, and 
this conviction, which in itself is a force, is gen- 
erally well founded. In this country where 
success is on the whole easy, one must be very 
incapable or very unskilful not to be able to 
overcome misfortune. This state of things 
cannot but encourage in the inhabitant of the 
United States that self which is the privilege of 
royal natures,^ and let us add the best quality 
of the man of action. Therefore he does not 
quail before the first check nor the tenth. 
P^ither the enterprise could not have been 
profitable, or it was not adapted to his facul- 
ties, lie must find something else, and he 
seeks until he does find. He will discover his 
true aptitude on the day when he succeeds. 
One knows oneself only by testing. He will 
test himself until he knows himself. 

Such is our man, and he is a man. Reverse 

' Emcraon, Essays. 



8() TIIK PKOPLK OF A( TION 

(l(K*s not depress hiiii; success excites witliout 
dazzling him, and urges him on to new successes. 
Why should he j)ause? N'ictor or vancjuislied, 
he will hardly iind resources in himself; he is 
not intellectually rich enough to suffice unto 
himself. He thinks only of what is necessary 
to light his way and wring results from his acts. 
Therefore he needs to spread himself abroad, 
to crfrriorizc himself unceasingly. "In the 
ardent life of New York," says M. Lannelongue, 
"there is room only for business and pleasure." ^ 
And pleasure consists chiefly in tlH> expenditure 
of physical energy, or in the life of society. It 
luis no place for solitary meditation, none for 
the pure enjoyment of art, for phil()soi)hical re- 
llection. It is a manifestly incomplete existence. 
But it is not a petty existence. For if the 
American is not the complete man, he is at 
least completely what he can he. lie gives 
only what he has, hut he gives without reckon- 
ing. He is in a i)(Mpetual state of tension and 
of hypcricnsion. And in this sense this speci- 
men of incom})lete humanity has something of 
the "superman." lie is not a hothouse plant, 
hut the luxuriant i)lant of a tropical vegetation, 
exuberant in sap, j)rofusely realizing itself in 
flowers anil fruits. His is a rich nature which 

' Vn Tour du Monde, p. 336. 



THE INDIVIDUAL IDEAL 87 

produces in feverish haste. "Everything com- 
liines to [keep the soul in a sort of feverish agi- 
tation, which admirably disposes it to all sorts 
of efforts, and maintains it, so to speak, above the 
common level of humanity. To the American 
all life goes on like a game, a period of revolu- 
tion, a day of battle." ^ A homespun life if 
ever there was one, under all its apparent lux- 
ury and well-being. "The life of toil and effort, 
of labor and strife." - This it is which gives to 
the men in the street "those chins and jaws by 
which," says Huret, "I should recognize the 
American type at the ends of the earth." ^ 
This it is which gives to an American crowd, so 
different from the impressionable, mobile, and 
excitable French crowd, its character of con- 
centrated energy. "It is cold, it is indifferent, 
it has a conscience, an aim; each individual 
here seems to be endowed with a clear-cut per- 
sonahty and a determined will." ■* This life, 
rather rich than unsophisticated, rather strong 
than tender, rather active than intellectual, and 
not in the least sentimental, goes straight to the 
new, to creating. As far removed from mysti- 
cism as possible the American, nevertheless, has 

* De Tocqueville, op. cit., I, p. 548. 

* Roosevelt, quoted in Leu EtaU-Unis et la France, p. 7. Cf. The 
Strenuous Life, p. 1. 

* Op. cit., p. 317. * Lannelongue, up. cit., p. 330. 



88 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

cntliiisiasin, faith, and alin()>l [\iv mysticism of 
action. lie fot'ls himself to liavc been born for 
^^reat things, "the greatest things in the world" 
— him, the citizen of "the greatest nation in 
the world"; who knows? perhaps he was born 
to make or to remake the world itself. "Any 
American, taken at random, is likely to be a 
man ardent in desire, enterprising, adventurous, 
al>ovc ail an iftnonitor.'' ' How colorless in his 
elegance, how aniemic in his fragile grace, ap- 
pears beside this younger brother the elder 
brother of Europe, of a delightful but somewhat 
outworn type! One can understand how we 
produce an effect as of out-of-date vapidity to 
this still somewhat rough-hewn creature, who yet 
resolutely takes his place at the head, and pro- 
poses to precede and guide us in the path of 
progress. 

' De Tocquovilk', op. cit.. I, p. 548. 



THE INDIVIDUAL IDEAL 89 



THE WOMAN 

Equality of sexes. — Co-education. — Physical life and "culture." 
— Marriage. — Independence of the married woman. — Fre- 
quency of divorce. — Every woman a feminist. 

A like sense of independence and strength is 
found in the American woman, not attenuated 
but perhaps still more strongly marked. 

In fact, like the man, she has to struggle and 
attain, while she has one more adversary to 
fight, man himself. It behooved her to master 
this rough, hard creature, and she has done it. 
The weaker sex, in this land of individual domi- 
nation, dominates the stronger. 

To reach this point she must needs become, 
first the equal of man, and then his superior. 
She is his equal so far as will goes, she proposes 
also to direct her own life, and she is able to 
do it, either at his side, if she marries him, or 
alone, if she remains single. It appears that 
she is tending to become his superior, not indeed 
in intelligence, but in intellectuality and re- 
finement. She has more leisure, especially if 
she is married, and she by no means devotes it 
all to her dressmaker and milliner. If culture 
finds its way into the United States it will be 
in great part owing to woman. 



00 TiiK pkoimj: of actiov 

Side hy side willi a fcinininlty lliat Is somc- 
tlinos exquisite there is in licr somelhing mas- 
ciiliiio, or, more correetly, virile. She is Hke a 
man in her walk and her freedom of manner. 
She has the same independence of judgment, 
and perhaps, in the case of the young girl, she 
has less candor than the hoy. 

She is treated like a man; is recognized as 
having the same rights, while preserving certain 
j)rivileges of her sex. But no man dreams of 
refusing her a situation or a position because 
he gives her flowers. Almost all careers are 
open to her, often including i)ul)lic functions. 
Til the United States there is no question of 
.sex. 

This equality is manifest from infancy. 
"Boy" and ''girl" receive the .same education, 
I)hysical and intellectual, and often in the 
same school. Co-education appears, to this 
healthy people of calm senses, to he a i)erfectly 
natural thing, and raises none of the problems 
which we in France find such difHculty in solv- 
ing. The little American girl has nothing of 
the doll about her. Like her brother she is an 
active creature, fond of sj)()rl. and before all 
"a good fellow"; like him she plunges into life 
in perfect freedom; like him she develops her 
body according to its nature and to her own; 



THE INDIVIDUAL IDEAL 91 

she practises gymnastics, rides horseback, loves 
the open air, rides the bicycle and even the 
motor-cycle; if she is rich she has her own 
automobile and runs it. Nor does she forget 
to prepare herself for her duties as a wife and 
housekeeper. She takes cooking-lessons; it is 
even not an unusual thing to find her at a bench 
in a workshop — and all, according to the 
American method, in the way of heaping up 
knowledge rather than co-ordinating it. To 
sum up, there is nothing distinctive in the edu- 
cation she receives. 

The result is a charming creature, original — 
at least to us — sweet, thoughtless, often super- 
ficial and always vital, like her brother. She 
resembles him much more than a French sister 
resembles her brother, and this is easy to under- 
stand, since she has always associated with 
boys instead of being kept apart from them. 
There is in her not the slightest trace of affec- 
tation or artificiality. She is as pleasing as the 
Frenchwoman without having been, like her, 
brought up to please. She is what she is with- 
out pretension. Iluret noted in her "an ab- 
sence of timidity without a shadow of effron- 
tery." ' 

She is not innocent in the sense of being ig- 

* De New-York a la Nmivelle-OrUana, p. GO. 



94 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

iiorant. "She is roniarkahle rather for purity 
of morals than for ehastity of mind." ' Ac- 
customed from early life to look the world in 
the face, aware of all realities, love is for her a 
simple, healthy thin^^ of which she speaks with- 
out false shame. If she flirts it is partly for 
fun, as a game, without a thought of evil. Her 
liberty is more of a safeguard to her than a 
danger. She sees and receives young men, 
goes about with them like a comrade. If she 
leaves home to complete her education in col- 
lege, her fiance will visit her in her room like 
any other friend, and no one finds anything 
to complain of. For that matter, she is com- 
pletely left to herself, travels alone from one 
end of America to the other, crosses the ocean 
alone, and lives alone in Europe. Her motlier 
is her grown-up friend, as the father is the 
grown-up friend of his son; nothing more. 

She often — more often than the young man, 
and with reason — desires to be instructed and 
to cultivate her mind. She studies languages, 
ancient and foreign literature, somewhat at 
haphazard, not without profit if not always 
with good taste. At Hoston and elsewhere may 
be found young girls who are excellent Latin 
and even Greek scholars. They study art, 

' De Tocqucville, op. cU., II, p. i\i. 



THE INDIVIDUAL IDEAL 93 

especially painting, in which they often display 
real talent. 

In general the American girl wishes to marry, 
but she does not make marriage the aim of her 
existence, and all the less that she knows that 
she will be sought for her own sake, and not 
"for a dowry which she has not and cannot 
have." ^ In fact, the richest girls are not always 
the most sought after; there are daughters of 
multimillionaires who are not married, and it 
is not always because they did not wish to be. 

The American girl, indeed, looks upon mar- 
riage after her own manner. She proposes to 
choose her own husband, and her parents have 
no idea of imposing one upon her. In the 
United States it is not families who marry, but 
individuals. Therefore nearly all marriages are 
marriages of inclination. But they are seldom 
marriages of passion. The American girl knows 
httle of "great love." Of all our romantic poets 
Musset is the one for whom she cares least. 
But she generally has a high consciousness of 
duty, and will be a faithful if not a tender wife. 
Everything considered, the average American 
couple is morally superior to the average 
European. 

The American woman has also, perhaps 

• Lanaelonguc, oj). cii., p. 336. 



94 THE PFX)PLE OF ACTION 

above all, a sense of lier rijjlits. Just as while 
she remains sin<^le she is aide to ereate a plaee 
in society for lurself, just so much, once mar- 
ried, she expects her Imshand to make one for 
her. No (louht she will accept reverses and 
trials with courage, hut in i)rinciple it is the 
husband's part to make money and the wife's 
to spend it. 

She is too independent to be a woman of the 
fireside. The conception of the fireside, the 
*'home," hardly scjuares with American man- 
ners. It is something not easy to constitute in 
this life of perpetual changes and journeyings, 
with the diiliculty of procuring servants, or, 
having them, of being well served. In fact, the 
need of a home is less keenly felt in the I iiiled 
States than in Europe. The American has little 
sense of privacy. The sexes desire to associate 
with one another rather than to find completion 
in one another. The individual, of whatever 
sex, is sufficient to hinist'lf. Among us the iso- 
hited person is lost, diminished. 

This sense of mutual independence explains 
how an .Vinerican husband and wife can take 
their meals at a hotel, or live in a "boarding- 
house," sometimes even when they have chil- 
dren. It is this which makes intelligible those 
separations of several months, sometimes of one 



THE INDIVIDUAL IDEAL 95 

or two years, which would hardly be tolerated 
in Europe, and not at all in France. The wife 
lives in Paris or London, Rome or Cairo, while 
the husband, reduced to the duty of banker, 
chiefly reveals his conjugal existence by the 
checks that he sends her or the credit which he 
opens for her in New York or Chicago. They 
meet as they had parted, with the "hand- 
shake" of two comrades rather than the kiss 
of husband and wife. 

A more unhappy result of this independence 
is the frequency of divorce. It is to a great 
extent due to a great fearlessness of thought 
and sentiment allied to a no less great loyalty. 
For infidelity is, on the whole, pretty rare, and 
in general the real cause of divorce is incom- 
patibility of temper, and a hardly veiled mutual 
consent, a desire to live together no longer. 

To the American, and still less to the Ameri- 
can woman, marriage is not an eternal engage- 
ment. They do not bind themselves for life, 
subordinating themselves one to the other. 
They come together in some sort conditionally, 
if not provisionally, reserving their liberty. 
From the bottom of their hearts they sincerely 
desire that their association may endure; but 
not that it shall endure at all cost. This is 



96 tin: people of action 

because the American family, as we have already 
shown, is not superior to llie individual; it is 
not the family hut the individual that consti- 
tutes the s(K-ial unit. The family is simply a 
natural and le^al ^rouj) of self-governing beings; 
it exists for them, and not they for it. 

A dangerous conception, perhaps, in certain 
respects, but fundamentally American and in- 
dividualistic. The individual nuist exist, in a 
family if he can, outside of it and by destroying 
it if he must. The abuse of divorce is oidy the 
price paid for the independence of the con- 
tracting parties. 

Thus, at no moment of her life does the 
woman vacate her liberty. She does not pass 
from parental tutelage to the tutelage of a hus- 
band. She is not the "eternal minor" of the 
Code Napoleon, who is but now beginning to 
emancipate herself. Before, during, and after 
marriage, daughter, wife, and widow or divorced 
woman, she has the same rights, if not tli<^ 
same duties; she never belongs to any one but 
lierself. 

The American knows nothing of "the law of 
man," often so hard upon the woman of Europe; 
he knows only "the law of the human being," 
which is quite another thing. On our continent, 
when one reflects upon it, the condition of 



THE INDIVIDUAL IDEAL 97 

woman, at times very agreealjle, often very 
painful, is always somewhat contempti})le. Man 
never treats her as an equal. Either he exploits 
her or he adulates her; hut, whether Ijeast of 
burden or little pet, she is not a self-governing 
ereature. The Ameriean, less refined but more 
loyal, sees in her a being like unto himself. 
He jostles her in the street, speaks to her with- 
out lifting his hat, does not give her his seat in 
the street-ear, in short, he treats her like a man, 
but he reeognizes in her without evasion all a 
man's rights. Associate or adversary, she is 
always a comrade. 

And the American woman has a conscience. 
Often superficial, as frivolous as a Frenchwoman, 
and more so, she is always more personal, less 
"a relative of man." She has in her something 
of Ibsen's Nora. Mrs. Mackay, the wife of the 
billionaire, writes a drama of free love, of which 
Huret has translated long extracts.^ In artless 
but guileless symbolism she rejects all the servi- 
tudes of conjugal life. This is not, as might 
have been the case in France, the caprice of a 
rich and idle woman of the world. It is a very 
sincere manifestation (whatever may be its 
artistic or philosophic character) of a profound 
instinct of independence, and even of revolt 

' Iluret, De Nevo-Yurk a la Nouvelle-OrUaiit, pp. tlQf. 



98 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

against possihlo restraints. Wlu'n, after her 
iltuil lil)erati()n the heroine exclaims, "Hence- 
forth I inarch ah)ng the highway of hfe, hearing 
a!)()ve me tlie rustUng of the strong wings of 
Truth in the winds of eternal Lil)erty," she is 
speaking like an American woman. In that 
country, from the richest to the poorest, every 
woman is a feminist. 

There is, therefore, hardly a special psy- 
chology of the American woman. In Europe we 
seek to emi)hasize that which distinguishes her 
from man. In the I'nited States tlu' types tend 
to draw so near together as to obliterate all dif- 
ferences. If she wills — and at times she does 
will — the woman can do great things. It was 
the women who, in the temperance campaign, 
secured the triumph of their ideas in certain 
States of the Union. It would seem that in the 
present war they propose to play a part of first 
importance. They have done much to .save the 
population of lielgium; many of them, regard- 
less of the submarine danger, have crossed and 
continue still to cross the Athintic to act as 
nurses on the French front. 

Notwithstanding which, it may be that 
woman does not always find in her physically 
weaker frame the same power of resistance as 
man. Hut obstacles, if they exist, are within 



THE INDIVIDUAL IDEAL 99 

her, and not exterior to her. She may be more 
easily overcome, or she may gain the victory at 
greater cost, but she is admitted to the conflict 
on the same ground and with hke arms. Man 
does not make use of his superiority to bar the 
way before her. He plays his game loyally: 
"fair play." She has the same facilities for de- 
velopment as he, and if she finds in herself the 
same resources there is nothing to hinder her 
from using them precisely as he does. 



VI 

THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 

The danger of anarchy. — Its remedies: Personality and Morality. 
— 1. Personality: the power of the individual; elimination 
of the weak; America the country of victors. — 2. Morality : 
Puritanism and Protestant discipline; personal religion; the 
sentiment of justice; alliance of duty and interest; idealiza- 
tion of self-interest; its natural prolongation into altruism. 
— The inflividual ideal. — The new human type. — Emerson's 
"reforming man." 

The ideal of the American is liberty, conceived, 
first of all, as the free expenditure of untiring ac- 
tivity. Each proposes to "live his life" in its 
fullest and somewhat Nietzschean sense. But 
is there not danger here.^ Can an organized 
and coherent nation ever emerge from this tu- 
mult of individuals thus launched into the con- 



100 tup: people of action 

flict, elbowing thrir way to pass the others, and 
not hesitating to trample upon the hodies of 
tliose who fall upon the road? And how shall 
anarchy he prevented in such a eoniiK^tition t)f 
unhridled energies? 

The renietly lies beside the evil, or rather it 
resides in the evil itself; in the formidable explo- 
sive foree of this exceptional personality. The 
existence of America as a nation is a stake won, 
a paradox realized. AuKM-ica has not avoided, 
not even overleaped, but overturned the ob- 
stacle by a headK)ng, impassioned movement 
which carries all along with it, thanks to an 
inward "stimulus," a spontaneous impulse ema- 
nating from the individual himself; he finds 
within himself tlic physical, intellectual, and 
moral resources which enable him to follow his 
own course and hew his way with no hindrance 
from his neighbor, and also without himself 
checking or delaying his neighbor in the race. 
*' It is by the energy of individuals that American 
society was constituted and is maintained."* 

That which first strikes one in the I'nited 
States is the absence of organization, that is, 
of concerted and collective ctfort. "There is 
no order in America; this is everywhere visible. 
Things go on, no one knows how, under the 

' De Rousicrs, Ixi Vie Amhieainc, p. 68ii. 



THE INDIVII:>1;AL ideal 101 

impulse of a wide-spread and continuous energy; 
but of regular order, of permanent and consecu- 
tive method, not a trace." ^ The waste of 
effort is manifest. It wells up from all direc- 
tions, at all times, like so many creations ex 
nihiloy absolute beginnings. America is the 
land of spontaneous generation. No precon- 
certed plan, no general view of the whole; iso- 
lated manifestations, sporadic and disconcerting. 
It is the original chaos. 

But from this chaos emerges a world, and it 
orders itself as naturally as it was born. One 
is reminded of the atoms of Epicurus, of that 
whirlwind in which all elements meet and 
mingle in ejjhemeral combinations, ceaselessly 
making and unmaking themselves, gradually 
uniting in composites increasingly stable. It is 
the property of life, it would seem, thus to mani- 
fest itself freely in a thousand unforeseen, un- 
expected forms; it asserts itself by the inner 
power of the germ which follows the law of its 
development, and which, though it renews its 
su})stance })y unceasing borrowings from its 
surroundings, draws it most of all from itself. 
Such is the American, living in the first place 
by himself and upon himself, and finally, through 
many collisions and much opposition organizing 

' Huret, De Nevo-Y'ork i la Nouvelle-OrUaiu, p. 56. 



102 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

liijnself U)r l)(.'Ui'r, for worse, with those of his 
kind. 

Had he been weak he would have suceumhed, 
or rather, the weak do succunih, as the feeble 
twig is thrown off by the vigorous phmt. Amer- 
ica is the product of a rigorous twofold selec- 
tion. At his origin, first; only the most hardy, 
(he most enterprising individuals ventured the 
risk of emigrating, and among these only the 
wisest and most energetic succeeded in taking 
root and making a permanent place for them- 
selves; and next, a continuous selection, for 
around the nucleus which these formed have 
gathered, and continue to gather, in successive 
waves and tides, the unemployed forces of 
Europe, of whom America unceasingly elimi- 
nates and grinds to pieces the "undesirable," 
This nation of rich men springs from a race of 
j)oor people, with robust nerves, muscles of 
steel, wills of iron, of whom effort is the law, 
and work the condition of existence. "Thus 
America has, as it were, skimmed the cream of 
the peoples of the Old World; this is why the 
human specimen is superior here to what it is 
in other countries." ^ 

America is, then, a nation of Nictors. With 
no convergence of effort, all have come to form 
one mass, cand that a harmonious mass. It is a 

* P. Leroy-Brnulirii, /,« EtaU-VnU au XIX' fiMe. Prrfacc, p. be. 



THE INDIVIDUAL IDEAL 103 

mistake to think that two, or many, strong 
personaHties cannot exist at the same time. 
The contrary is true. The strong personaHty 
absorbs or destroys the weak one; what could 
he do with the useless, the social refuse ? They 
encumber the streets and must be swept away. 
But when he meets his equal he most probably 
organizes a joint effort. Combining and co- 
ordinating themselves, both are the more effi- 
cient; competition leads either to collaboration 
or to the coexistence of parallel and solidary 
interests. There is room only for those who 
count, but there is room for all who count. 
America is a nation of equals — equal in strength 
and equal in victory. 

Still, energy alone would not have sufficed 
to make her what she is. If she had been 
founded by adventurers and gold-seekers she 
would have been the equivalent of Mexico, or 
rather of one of the South American republics. 
"She is the work of men who, having made 
good their domination over the material ele- 
ments of life, have gone on to attain domina- 
tion of its moral elements, without which an or- 
ganized society cannot exist." ^ The United 
States are, above all, the work of the Puritans. 

' De Rousiera. Preface to the translaliou of Roosevelt's American 
Ideals, p. xi. 



104 THE PEOPLE OP ACTION 

Tlianks to I hem, Ajnerica seems to be the 
reaUzation of ;i great hope, that of the regenera- 
tion of the iiiiiiiaii race. The early colonists of 
New Engiaiul, (|uitting their native land, fled 
from a land of perdition to seek in a new coun- 
try a "land of liberty." Urged by an idea 
rather than by necessity, they were "pilgrims," 
seeking new shores that there they might main- 
tain their faith without suffering persecution. 
They brought with them rigid doctrines, pure 
morals, inflexible diseiplini^ — so many bridles 
ui)on the unrestrained aj)i)etites too natural to 
a conciuering people. They have impressed a 
strong, perhaps indelible, moral stamp upon the 
I)ositive, trafficking beings which the greater 
number of Americans seem to be. Their in- 
fluence, the first in date, was also the most pro- 
found; mingling with all succeeding influences 
it has moulded this composite individual: the 
man of duty who is at the same time the man 
of acquisitions. 

I5ut the (lis(ij)line thus required could have 
been accepted only because it was nuirvellously 
adapted to his temperament. Had it been the 
Catholic discipline, ijnj)()sing a strict, passive 
obedience, the Credo quia absurdum, it would 
have taken no hold upon the fiercely indepen- 
dent nature of the inunigraut. On the contrary. 



THE INDIVIDUAL IDEAL 105 

the Protestant discipline, founded on free in- 
vestigation by the individual conscience, de- 
manding a personal, well-considered, voluntary 
submission to a freely accepted obligation, 
favored, respected, magnified his personal in- 
dependence. It was, on the whole, nothing 
else than the principle of "self-government" 
applied to religious matters. By its triumph 
the Puritans endowed America with a con- 
science; owing to them she has become a con- 
science-directed force. 

This conscience is as much moral as religious, 
if not more so. All Americans are not Protes- 
tants; far from it; but most of them, though 
perhaps unconsciously, are more or less Puri- 
tans. They generally draw their inspiration 
from the Bible. But the Bible, "the Book," is 
only a guide, an adviser; it dictates no ready- 
made conclusions; it suggests a line of conduct 
which is followed only after, having been fully 
considered, it is adopted. Religion in America 
has not the narrowly confessional character of 
European Catholicism; it is an individualistic 
religion, a religion of liberty. Nine Americans 
out of ten will tell you "I belong to no Church." 
Religious sects swarm over the territory of the 
Union, each interpreting the Bil)le in their own 
way, because it is the particular property of 



km; the people OE ACTION 

none of tlicin. Religious tolerance proceeds 
from the same principle as tolerance in matters 
j)<)litical, social, industrial, or commercial. Each 
may sliai)c his life as he deems good: his material 
life by his labor, his moral life by his personal 
interpretation of the Scriptures. 

This sincere faith is not a mere consent of 
the mind, it is an active, practical faith. The 
American does not ask the church to be his 
refuge, his door of salvation, his great consola- 
tion in aflliction. He expects it to play a use- 
ful part, and God himself, as AVilliam James 
says, nuist be of use, nuist render .services to 
man. "If the h\'pothesis God works .satis- 
factorily ... it is true." ' If, upon reflec- 
tion, he decides for .spiritualism against ma- 
terialism, it is because the hypothesis matter 
is sterile, idle, does not pay, whereas the hy- 
j)()thesis .spirit has over it "a practical superior- 
ity." - In an essentially mechanical world, 
where only the actual exists, with no horizon 
and no future prospect, man would speedily 
deem his activities useless, and do what he 
found to do without pleasure, ^^^lereas God, 
securing to us the existence of "an ideal order 
that shall be permanently preserved,"' gives 
us in some sort a heart to work, makes our task 

^ W. James, Pragmatum. * lb. * lb. 



THE INDIVIDUAL IDEAL 107 

easy and glad by the prospect of success, it 
being perfectly understood that this success is 
still our own work, that God does not substi- 
tute himself for us, that he is present simply to 
stimulate us and give tone to our effort. Here, 
more than anywhere else, is the proverb true: 
"Help yourself and Heaven will help you." 

Thus it is not a question of adoration, but of 
active collaboration with a Creator who, being 
an American, cannot have taken much rest 
since the seventh day of creation. The Ameri- 
can feels that his God is working beside him, 
and he works with him. His religion becomes 
a part of his life, modifies and moulds it. 
Whether he be Salvationist, Mormon, or what- 
ever other sect, his faith penetrates and forms 
his tastes, his habits, the cut of his clothes, 
the ordering of his meals. It organizes the 
family, determines the ceremonial of marriage, 
the relations between employer and employed. 
Heaven comes down to earth, the American 
gives form, strength, and vigor to whatever he 
believes. 

Ministers of religion are naturally cut out of 
the same cloth as their people. According to 
their preaching the advantages of religion are 
not purely of a spiritual order. They dwell 
upon its benefit and profit in this world, upon 



108 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

the advantages that lil)erty and the puhHc or- 
der draw from il. In their minds the joys of 
heaven are upon a par with well-being here 
below, and the same effort procures them l)oth. 
hvt us be religious that we may be moral, and 
let us be moral that we may be happy. 

This morality is none the less rigid, that in 
the United States hai)piness is not to be won 
without pains. Puritanism prescriljed narrow 
regulations of which certain present-day i)ro- 
hibitions are as a feeble echo. It forbade travel- 
ling, cooking, cutting hair and shaving on Sun- 
day. "The husband may not kiss his wife nor 
the mother her child on Sundays and holi- 
days." ^ Practices have been mitigated, but the 
interdiction of whiskey and of providing meals 
on Sunday beyond a certain hour still bears the 
mark of its origin. 

In any case, the essential element remains, 
that is to say, the si)irit which inspired them. 
The moral sentiment which guides the American 
in all his undertakings is the sense of personal 
dignity, "self-respect." For if he desires to be 
respected by others, he imperiously feels the 
necessity of not being lowered in his own eyes. 
Hence arises, in this nation of business men, a 

' M. Uixlrigurs has here fallen victim to ud ancient and long-ago ex- 
ploded joke. Note by the Translator. 



THE INDIVIDUAL IDEAL 109 

solicitude for purity ^ a rectitude of thought and 
act, surprising to others. The president of Har- 
vard, Mr. Roosevelt, and many educators, 
preach to students the chastity of young men 
before marriage. Such a crusade in Europe, 
and notably in France, would be likely to pro- 
voke a laugh or at least excite a smile in the 
audience. Over there, those who thus teach 
are listened to and followed by the great major- 
ity of their hearers — seventy per cent, if we are 
to believe the testimonies gathered by Huret.^ 

If there are exceptions, they keep their own 
counsel. A man does not boast of his ''good 
fortunes," he blushes for them as for a weak- 
ness. To be seen in public with a woman of 
doubtful character constitutes a blemish which 
would close the doors of a university against 
one. As for respect for young girls, we have 
already seen that it is absolute. Is not this a 
''living ideal" far superior to the so-called 
idealistic romanticism under which the young 
men of Europe conceal many faults and much 
corruption .^ 

For the same reasons of moral cleanliness the 
American keeps his engagements. He is severe, 
or rather "exact," in business. This is the very 
word by which one of them characterized the 

' Huret, De New-York h la NouvelU-Orliana, p. 145. 



no THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

superwealthy Rockefeller.' But he is loyal. 
What is due is due. Nothing more, we may be 
sure, for with him the spirit of a contract and 
its letter are one. From this point of view the 
working man of the United States is the model 
of working men, the only one, perhaps, who 
gives to the word work its full but strict sense. 
If he agrees for eight hours he gives eight hours, 
not a minute more, not a minute less. But they 
are eight hours of concentrated, tenacious, uni- 
form work, not a tug at the collar, no feverish 
haste, but neither is there lounging, bungling, 
slighting, spoiling of tools. One knows that he 
is to be counted upon, and what may be expected 
of him — no suri)rises, either good or bad. On 
his part, the emj)loyer feels bound in honor to 
keep his agreement. lie is not in the habit of 
chaffering as to pay, and if he reckons upon a 
large profit, he has no notion of realizing it at 
the expense of his emi)l()yees. As a general 
rule, the American revolts at the idea of ex- 
ploiting the labor of another. Everj' task 
should receive its due wage. No unpaid labor, 
nor any overpaid or underpaid work. 

The basis of American morals is the practical 
synthesis of strict justice and properly under- 

' Ilurct, Dc Sau Francisco du Canada. 



THE INDIVIDUAL IDEAL 111 

stood interest. The American has a keen sense 
of both these sentiments, and finds them in 
perfect agreement: justice is the interest of 
others which I recognize to be as legitimate as 
my own; interest is justice to me, my legitimate 
aspiration after a better condition of being. 
The United States have reduced utilitarianism 
to practice. It should be recognized to their 
glory that in the industrial as in the political 
domain — as we shall shortly see — their most 
immediate and most evident interest coincides 
with the highest ends of the human conscience. 
It was already thus in Tocqueville's time. 
*'The greater number of them," he said of the 
Americans, "believe that an intelligent appre- 
hension of his own interest is sufficient to induce 
a man to be just and honest." ^ "In the United 
States they almost never say that virtue is 
!)eautiful. They show that it is useful, and they 
prove it daily." - The American is an intelli- 
gent egoist. 

In fact, the idea of justice is, in many respects, 
a selfish idea, but this is a comprehensive self- 
ishness. It asserts the right, and what is the 
right — that recognition of the human person 
and his real value — but the most legitimate 
selfishness.'' I cease to be a means; I propose 

• De Tocquevillc, op. cit., II, p. 362. ' lb.. III. p. 199. 



112 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

to be an end; I iiin I. And by this act I claim 
for my / all that I recognize to be due, for the 
same reasons, to the / of others. Suum cuiqne, 
ncmincm lacdc, so many formulas which at once 
recognize and circumscribe the sj)here of action 
of each individuality. The American does not 
measure too stingily this suum, but neither does 
he exaggerate it. It must correspond with the 
worth of effort put forth, and especially of the 
result attained. It therefore constitutes a guar- 
antee, a security for the worker, and in the end 
it insures a better return for his work. 

If this conception is narrow, it is intentionally 
so. It leaves no place for pity and charity. 
It is not sentimental. The American hardly 
understands sentiment, and is suspicious of it; 
lie sees in it a sign rather of weakness than of 
kindliness, leading to partiality and injustice, 
shocking the respect for liberty and equality 
which, in his country, takes precedence of all 
other qualities. Not that the American cannot 
be generous; far from it; he is splendidly, 
royally generous. Is it necessary to remind 
our readers that it is mainly due to him that 
Belgium has been fed ? But granting this, even 
in the spontaneity of his act he follows his 
reason rather than his heart. His generosity 
does not spring from an imj)ulse of sensibility, 



THE INDIVIDUAL IDEAL 113 

but from a revolt of conscience. He is more 
properly repairing outraged right than perform- 
ing a gracious act. A contract had been vio- 
lated by one of the contracting parties. He 
does not deem himself merely a third party; 
his solicitude for neutrality compels him in 
some sort to do his part, and a large part, in 
paying what he looks upon as the debt of pros- 
perous humanity to humanity outrageously de- 
spoiled. 

Even in this case, even in this broad concep- 
tion, he is true to his principle: morality gains 
by resting upon a contract. It presupposes 
freedom and equality in the case of the contract- 
ing parties. It has, therefore, no call to be 
charitable, to make gifts; its duty is to be just, 
to reimburse, to make retribution. 

Self-interest is therefore justified. There is 
nothing mean or petty in it. Even where it 
appears the most cold-blooded it is often the 
most fruitful in good. Emerson often praises 
it, as in "some strong transgressor like Jefferson, 
or Jackson, who first conquers his own govern- 
ment, and then uses the same genius to conquer 
the foreigner." ^ And if "this force is not 
clothed in satin," ^ if, especially in business, "it 
usually carries a trace of ferocity," ^ it is none 

* Emerson. The Conduct of Life : Power. * lb. • lb. 



114 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

the less good in itself, aiul leaves behind it 
fewer ruins than harvests. It niulti])lies roads, 
railways, canals, schools. Civilization in gen- 
eral, and most particidarly American civiliza- 
tion, is the product of self-interest. 

The fact is that even in spite of itself this 
form of self-interest is more tlian generous, it 
is a generator; it is the self-interest of the open 
hand and not of the closed fist. Competition 
in itself implies first the collaboration and then 
the development of effort. In this extreme ten- 
sion of energies, he who acts for himself acts 
for all, and incites those around him to activity. 
He sets in motion enormous forces, organizes, 
multiplies them, increases tlieir power tenfold 
and their proceeds a hundredfold. He, there- 
fore, nuist needs .solicit help; he stings into 
activity forces which l)ut for liim would have 
remained inert. He obliges his neighbors to fol- 
low or to overtake him. Carried along by an 
impetuous impulse, he uplifts himself only by 
uplifting others. "There is always room for 
a man of force, and he makes room for many." ^ 

By these means American self-interest natu- 
rally, inevitably, develops into altruism. The 
progress of one entails the progress of ail. 
There is, as it were, a simultaneous movement of 

'76. 



THE INDIVIDUAL IDEAL 115 

all the strata of society to a higher level. This 
is, indeed, the property of democracy. Democ- 
racy is not a miracle, the iimnediate reaHzation 
of universal well-being. It consists in the more 
and more rapid arrival of the greatest number, 
or at least of an ever-increasing number, at a 
state of welfare and security until then re- 
served for a caste of privileged persons, who 
jealously guarded them for themselves and 
transmitted them to their children only. Here, 
on the contrary, the upspringing of all individ- 
ual wills finally results not in a levelling from 
below, but in an expansion of the collective 
existence which is almost universally elevated. 
Some gain more, others less, but in the end all 
gain. In this game, the game of free activities, 
there are, so to speak, no losers. 

On the whole, the spectacle which America 
presents is singularly cheering. Far more than 
Europe she is without a poverty-stricken prole- 
tariat. This land of big capitalists is also the 
land of high wages, in inverse ratio to Ger- 
many, and often even to France. In the very 
struggle of classes there is here a strict soli- 
darity, and on many points an identity of in- 
terests between capital and labor. Further- 
more, if competition is fierce it is more easily 
turned into collaboration. Mr. Rockefeller 



116 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

iiijule it a rule, when forming trusts, always to 
offer shares to those with whom he was treating.* 
It is a constant rule, indeed. The trusts have 
always sought to absorb rather than destroy, 
and have shown themselves pitiless only to re- 
calcitrants. If they have finally proved to be 
endangering American freedom, at least in their 
beginning they contributed to development. 
They have everywhere sought and they still 
seek for auxiliaries, and wherever these give 
apprecial)le service they pay largely, without 
haggling. The spirit of justice and respect 
for the personality of others are the natural 
fruits of creative and successful self-interest. 

Emerson has brought into the light this ideal- 
ism which is born of the very excess of rcali.sm. 
"Though in no respect idealistic, the coal-mines 
of Pennsylvania, the maritime forces of New 
York, and the principles of free exchange are 
all gravitating in an ideal direction. Xothiug 
lets great than justice can keep them satisfied ^ • 
Not a niggardly justice, doling out the share of 
each, paring down one man's share that another 
may not have less than he, and making equality 
reside in mediocrity; but a largely distributive 
justice, scattering from full hands the products 
of Iniinaii activily, and giving to each his due, 

' Hurtl, De San Francisco au Canada, p. iO. * Emerson, Eisayt. 



THE INDIVIDUAL IDEAL 117 

in proportion to his personal worth and social 
usefulness. "To each according to his merit, 
to merit according to its works." 

That this sort of justice is not precisely our 
own, that it would not satisfy the ideal aspira- 
tions of the European and especially of the 
French soul, may well be the case. Even in 
America it has come to seem insufficient to 
certain persons, and we know that Mr. Wilson, 
among others, has uttered a warning against 
it. It does not recognize what has been called 
"the claim of the weak upon the strong"; it 
recognizes no weak persons, it admits only of 
the strong; they alone have the right to share 
because they alone have a right to exist. But 
even in its pitiless narrowness there is a grandeur 
in its morality: Be strong! The first and per- 
haps the sole duty of man toward himself is 
fully to realize himself. 

Thus everything in America is dominated by 
the idea of the human individual, that ardent, 
vivid personality who is seeking himself, who 
still, in large measure, has to find himself, but 
who, even in his present indetermination, gives 
us to trace the large outline of what he will be, 
or, better, of what he will make himself. 

His first characteristic is restlessness. Ex- 
ternally it is manifested by "the essential mo- 



lis THE PEOPLi: OF ACTION 

hility of a ixoplc whose life is extremely strenu- 
ous, and whose eyes are constantly fixed, not 
iijx)!! llic past, not even upon the present, but 
upon the future." ' 

Activity for the sake of activity, by a sense 
of excessive life, of supcral)un(lant energy' which 
cannot but expend itself; this, far more than 
dollar-hunting, is the distinctive mark of the 
American. The pursuit of wealth is the appar- 
ent object, the expenditure of force is the real 
need. 

Thus the future appears to him incoherent 
and confused, not as a definite aim upon which 
he has fixed his mind, but rather as an indefinite 
accumulation of possible activities. He de- 
sires to be rich, as a matter of course, but that 
is less an aim than a guiding thread in the laby- 
rinth of existence. He does not sketch in ad- 
vance the outlines of the form under which he 
will realize himself, he aspires to realize himself 
in no matter wliat form, i)n)vi(lc(l it will pay. 
lie marches forward in a world illimitably open 
to him, in which are vaguely sketched, imper- 
fectly blocked out, myriads of forms, original 
and unforeseen. He will be one of these, no 
matter which, but above all he will be, if he 
can, something that he is not yet. 

' Let Etait-Vnia et la France. A(l(lr»\H.s l)y Ik»iilronx, p. 7. 



THE INDIVIDUAL IDEAL 119 

It would seem that not long before his death 
WilHam James thought of writing a Metaphysic 
of the New, of Creation,^ which would have 
been the American metaphysic, the metaphysic 
of active empiricism. America might be de- 
fined as the onset of all individual wills for the 
assault of the unknown. The American lives 
in an intoxication of conquest, but his conquests 
are due to his creative activity. He is bent 
upon conquering that which is not, that is, 
upon producing. 

De Rousiers glimpsed a part of the truth 
when he said: "That which enables the Ameri- 
can to succeed, that which constitutes his type, 
which causes the sum of good to predominate 
over the sum of evil, is moral worth, personal 
energy, creative energy.''' ^ But the portrait 
lacks completion; that which, above all, the 
American tends to realize is himself, and in 
himself the new man, the man of to-morrow, 
him whom civilization awaits, hopes for, and 
has not yet produced. 

Of this man we must again go to Emerson to 
fix the chief features, for he, more profoundly 
than any other, apprehended and incarnated 
the genius of his race. "The new time demands 
a new man, the complementary man whom th's 

* lb., p. 9. * De Rousiers, op. cil., p. 681. 



I>0 THE PEOPLE OE ACTION 

country evidently ought to produce." ' Tliis 
man will he 'Uhc reforming man J' *'the coura- 
geous, integral man, who will discover or open a 
straight road to all that is good and excellent 
upon the earth." - That lie will one day be 
called to take the headship of the nations is the 
conviction of all, the conviction which President 
Wilson in his messages and addresses forcibly 
points out and claims. IIow shall the nations 
be remoulded after a new type, adapted to new 
mundane conditions, if man himself is not first 
remade? "Why was man born, if not to be a 
Reformer, a Re-maker of what man has done ?" ^ 
Let hijn first realize in himself and over himself 
the revolution of which he dreams for the uni- 
verse. "Is not the highest duty to honor man 
in ourselves?""* And the surest way to honor 
hijn is, first of all, to cause him to be born. 

It would seem that, in fact, the future or, if 
you will, the mission of the American people is 
a mission of renascence and renovation. Hu- 
manity is at the parting of the ways. It is im- 
possible that it should be to-morrow what it 
was yesterday. A world is dying, a world is 
being l)orn. 

*'t/n grand destin commence, un grand 
destin s'achevc.'' 

' Emerson, Essays. * lb. * lb, * lb. 



THE INDIVIDUAL IDEAL 121 

The part of America, this new people among 
worn-out nations, may be immense, and it wills 
it to be so. After this war of Titans, from 
which Europe will issue decimated, exhausted, 
and in solution, she expects to furnish the type 
of humanity which will enable it to effect its 
own regeneration. She already foresees this, 
and that in endeavoring to fashion herself in 
conformity with her ambition and her destiny 
she is accomphshing a work of cosmical impor- 
tance. 



CHAPTER III 

THE NATIONAL IDEAL 

I 

THE STATE 

America "a nation of individuals." — Contrast between European 
nationalism an(J American individualism. — There is no 
American nation. — Weakness of |K>liticai life. — Power of 
public opinion. — American democracy. 

" ^MERICA,' said Emerson, "is a nation of 
/-% individuals." ^ 

By this fact she is in strong contrast 
with other nations, and especiallv with France. 
There is httle more than the word in conunon 
between the .Vmerican nation and the nations 
of Europe. First of all, and above all, she is as 
little as possible a state. 

The state is manifested above all by sover- 
eignty. And this she concentrates in the hands 
of a governing class. It is by the state that a 
nation enters history, by the grouj)ing of indi- 
viduals wlio until then formed oidy a horde 
around a leader, "invested by them with full 

• Emerson. Essayt. 
Iti 



THE NATIONAL IDEAL 123 

powers, and to whom they look for protection 
and defense." 

The first ivho became King 2cas a successfjil 
soldier. 

In the course of time this conception has be- 
come more or less profoundly modified, but it 
alwaj's bears the impress of its origin. Pri- 
marily the result of force, the state preserves 
its character of authority even when it takes on 
the most legal appearance. In some sort it 
towers above the individual, subordinating him 
to itself; endowed with large powers of coercion, 
it is tempted to employ them against the people, 
even when it is from them that it holds its 
powers. 

As a result, those in whom the state is in- 
carnated in vain call themselves only delegates 
or representatives — and this is the case only in 
democratic nations — they none the less feel 
themselves to be invested with exceptional au- 
thority, and hence before long they all come 
more or less to represent nothing but themselves. 
^^^lere the parliamentary system acts as a cor- 
rective, it first utters a warning, and then brings 
about that convulsion which is known as the 
overturning of a ministry. But though the 
persons in a government be changed, the govern- 
ment persists; in vain is it renewed, in vain at 



124 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

everj' moment of its existence is it responsible 
to the country' ; it is not long in again constitut- 
ing itself as a factor apart, superimposed upon 
the nation when not opposed to it, existing in 
and for itself. 

Not only does the nation consent to this 
domination, in general it begs for it. How- 
ever much it may complain of the encroach- 
ments of power, it finds a power necessarj*. It 
needs direction, impulse, it often needs places 
and favors. It expects the state to act, thus 
dispensing itself from the necessity of action. 
One may judge of this by the continually aris- 
ing complaints against "a government that does 
not govern," and demands for "a strong gov- 
ernment." Subjects must have a master. 

Doubtless this is above all true of autocracies, 
and in this sense Germany is the tjpe of state- 
hood, of the fetich state, the "Great Being" 
which absorbs and annihilates individuals. But 
the democracies of Europe are. to a great degree, 
ponetrateil by the same spirit. It might ahnost 
be said that they regret the tutelage from which 
they have been too early emancipated. France, 
after its numberless revolutions, and its nearly 
fifty years of republican rule, looks to its gov- 
ernment for everything, and lives by an admin- 
istrative organization bequeathed to it by the 



THE NATIONAL IDEAL U5 

First Empire. EngUuid itself, free England, has 
not escaped the contagion. Let us not forget 
that it was an EngHshiuan. Spencer, who wrote 
the well-known squib, "The Individual Against 
tlie State.' Even revolutionary Russia, born 
but yesterday, drunk with freedom, is already 
experiencing the imperative need of rallying 
around a pro\'isional government at the risk of 
disintegration, finding in it almost the equivalent 
of a committee of pubhc s;ifety. 

In short, it is the property of Europe to be 
governed, at the jxril of risking destruction. 
Outside of the system of statehood there is room 
only for anarchy. She more or less tempers 
this system by an appeal to that instrument of 
control, parliiunent. but the ven* existence of 
parhaxuentarianism proves the power of the 
state. It is the remedy, side by side with the 
disease, the safegiuird against an always pos- 
sible and always dreaded abuse of power. 

Now in America there is nothing of the kind. 
In spite of entirely superficial resemblances, 
there is no American statehood. America knows 
nothing of statehood. It may not even be 
said that she is anti-statist, but if one dare risk 
the barbarism, she is a-statist. In America the 
coIlectiNitv resolves itself mto the sinijle indi- 



12() TIIK PEOPLE OF ACTIOX 

vidiials that compose it. They carry on their 
public business themselves far more than they 
(lelet^ate it to others. 

All who have travelled in the Tniled States 
have become aware of the la.xity of public life. 
One is hardly aware of the existence of a gov- 
ernment. This arises both from the structure 
of the American Constitution and the state 
of public si)irit. "There is in the American 
Government, considered as a whole, a want of 
unity. Its branches are unconnected and their 
efforts are not directed to one aim, do not pro- 
duce one harmonious result." ' It would seem 
that both it and the diverse parts of its mechan- 
ism are characterized by the same spirit of 
independence that we have noted in the citizens 
of the Union. There is no concerted action, 
no co-operation between the Houses, the Presi- 
dent, the federal courts; each plays its own 
part without concerning itself about its neigh- 
bor. And the nation concerns itself the less, 
because it doi^s not sutler from the situation. 
It does not expect to be given its a, its key-note, 
and still less that its work should be done for it. 
"That which comes to pass seems not to be a 
result of the action of the legal organs of the 
state, but of some larger force, which at one 

' Bryw, The Amrriran Commomcrallh, I, p. i87. 



THE NATIONAL IDEAL 127 

time uses their discord as its means, at another 
neglects them altogether." ^ 

In consequence, elective functions are lightly 
esteemed, and are abandoned to professional 
politicians. The latter, though within the last 
few years their lead has tended to improve, are 
often despicable, and still more often despised. 
Politics is the career of those who have and can 
have no other; it is adopted by those who have 
failed in other professions, for private enter- 
prises suffice, and more than suffice, to absorb 
the energies of the sound population. In gen- 
eral, "Politics are less interesting in America 
than in Europe," and do not lead so far, while 
other careers are relatively more important 
and lead farther.^ 

Thus, here more than elsewhere the electoral 
parties are syndicates of powerfully organized 
and unscrupulous private interests. The "boss " 
is king, and in case of need does not shrink from 
corruption or fraud. His party is concerned 
with satisfying its adherents and getting places 
for its members. The general welfare is its 
smallest concern. 

The result is a dangerous condition which has 
been many a time pointed out, but the impor- 
tance of which must not be exaggerated — it is 

• lb., I, p. 288. ' lb.. II, pp. 38, 39, passim, p. 283. 



128 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

less in America than <'Isewliere. Mr. Roosevelt 
has pointed out that "in thelon^'rnn thej)olitics 
of fraud and treachery and foulness are nn^jrac- 
tical politics," and "the most practical of all 
politicians is the politician who is clean and 
decent and upri^dit."^ President Wilson, more 
disquieted by this occult influence, laments that 
authority has been confiscated by a handful of 
leaders who manipulate the people in the dark 
and make demands upon the government in the 
light of day. "Government must ... be ab- 
solutely i)ul)lic in everj'thing that affects it." ^ 
But in reality it is external in every essential 
point. In normal times the people of the 
United States leave the President and the Houses 
to attend to their business; but let a crisis come 
and they know how to act for themselves. 
Then the active members of the population 
take public affairs in hand. They do it with 
their usual decision, at times by summary proc- 
esses, of which lynch-law affords an example. 
They form vigilance committees, which control 
the functioning of the administrative machinery, 
free associations which deal with urgent diffi- 
culties. Then, their duty done, they return to 
their private affairs. 

' Roosevelt, Amrriran Jdeah, p. .S6. 

* Woodrow Wilson, The Sew Freedom, p. ISO. 



THE NATIONAL IDEAL 129 

In such cases it would never occur to them 
to seek the support of the pubhc powers. In 
America they are accustomed to depend only 
upon themselves; all they ask of the state is 
neither to favor nor to impede individual effort. 
What Tocqueville wrote has not ceased to be 
true: "The inhabitant of the United States is 
taught from his birth that he must depend upon 
himself in his struggle against the ills and diffi- 
culties of life; he looks upon the social authori- 
ties with an uneasy and defiant eye, and only 
appeals to their power when he can do no other- 
wise. ^ 

This power exists only by him, and he knows 
it. The representatives of the nation are in- 
vested with but limited means of action, and 
for a short space of time. The office-holder is 
truly, in a certain degree, immediately and di- 
rectly dependent upon the elector. The will 
of the people acts directly and constantly upon 
the legislative and executive mandatories.^ 
While the German Reichstag, in spite of ap- 
pearances, is merely the servant of the Emperor, 
while the French and English Parliaments are 
really the representatives of the nation, the 
Congress of the United States is nothing of the 
kind. "In America Congress is not the na- 

' De T(Kqui'vilk', op. cit. * Brycc, op. cit., II, p. ii5. 



130 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

tion, and does not claim to be so,"* for "the 
mass of the citizens may be deemed as . . . the 
supreme power." - President Wilson, following 
the example of Mr. Roosevelt, and especially of 
Mr. Bryan, claims new powers for the people, 
the "initiative" of laws, the "referendum," and 
the "recall" of functionaries. We need, he 
says, "to take charge of our own atfairs." ' 
Without discussing the potentialities of these 
methods of action, it may be said that there is 
no country in which they appear to be less 
necessary, for even when the people act by 
their representatives it is always they who act, 
and no one can evade their will. "Towering 
over presidents and State governors, over Con- 
gress and State legislatures, over conventions 
and the vast machinery of party, public opinion 
stands out in the United States as the great 
source of power, the master of servants, who 
tremble before it." * 

It is in this sense that America is a democ- 
racy, perhaps the only truly constituted democ- 
racy, in which, as we shall see, the citizen 
always finds himself confronted with laic, but 
never with power. It is truly the republic, 
the "public thing," the thing of all, that in 

' lb., p. «n. « Ih.. p. M7. 

* Woodiuw \Ml«>a. op. cii., p. HI. * Biycr, op. eit., II. p. 2S5. 



THE NATIONAL IDEAL 131 

which it suiBces that each one shall freely de- 
velop himself in order to take his part in 
sovereignty. There is in the whole world no 
country whose impulsion comes less from above, 
where it comes more from beneath, from the 
lowest stratum of the population. In this con- 
geries of indix'idual activities the common and 
collective wiU is only the natural result of many 
dispersed efforts. "What is called the republic 
in the United States is the slow, quiet action of 
society upon itself. It is a true state, really 
founded upon the enhghtened will of the peo- 
ple." 1 

n 

THE DECIARATION" OF RIGHTS 

Tbe United States were bom ol Right and not of Fact. — Indi- 
vidual rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. — 
National rights. — Independeaice and moral personality. — 
"Righteous insurrection." — Rejection of tbe "strcmg gov- 
enunent." — The United States a government ol mten. 

Thus it was by the affirmation of their will 
to be, that the L'nited States constituted them- 
selves a nation. The date of their existence 
can be fixed. Of how many peoples could as 
much be said ? Before the Declaration of In- 
dependence in 1776, there was nothing. From 

' De TooqwvO^ «pu caL. II. p 400. 



182 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

the moment of tliat declaration tliere was an 
American nation, founded upon a legal basis. 

It is in fact the distinctive character of the 
United States to have been born of law and 
not of fact, or rather of having made fact to 
proceed from law. Everywhere else the na- 
tion existed before the law; here, the law, the 
charter of recognized and unanimously ac- 
cepted liberties, created the nation. The will 
to be, manifested In I lie form of a contract, 
preceded and made actual the being. The 
American colonists, by proclaiming the rights 
of man as the condition of a people's existence, 
for the first i'unv in history showed, and proved 
by example, not onl}' that a nation belongs 
only to itself, but that it ought to make itself, 
to create itself by its own effort. At the basis 
of the national compact there was neither the 
violence of a victor nor the constraint nor the 
gratuitous kindness of a master, bad or good, 
nor yet a series of accidents and contingencies, 
of confused instincts and vague, sentimental 
affinities. There was a free contract, an act 
of reason, a rij)ely considered determination. 
*'It was the realization of sovereignty, not in 
isolated, arbitrary, unreflecting decisions, in 
fluenced by passion or interest, but in a legally 
constituted state." ^ 

• Let Itatt-Unia d la France. Address hy Mr. P. J. Hill. p. «08. 



TPIE NATIONAL IDEAL 133 

The essential principle of the Constitution, 
as it springs from the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence, is the rights of the individual as basis, 
principle, and end of the collectivity. The na- 
tion, a collective person, has no other entity 
than its citizens, individual persons. 

Such is in fact the sound democratic tradi- 
tion, forcibly expounded by Mr. Baldwin and al- 
ways faithfully acted upon by the United States. 
In this tradition "the state is only a means, 
an instrument of the nation, not an end in it- 
self; a means of realizing personal and social 
values, determined by free citizens in the course 
of their free development, and chosen for their 
free happiness." ^ The state, therefore, re- 
duces itself to the part of a tool, having only 
"an instrumental and not an absolute value." * 
It has no real existence, no proper personality, 
except in the man, the citizen. 

The citizen, therefore, has natural rights 
antecedent to any agreement, which the na- 
tional compact may and should recognize and 
sanction, but which it has no power to create. 
Such rights are "inalienable." 

What are they ? The Declaration of Inde- 
pendence touches upon only the most impor- 
tant among them: "Among these are life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." 

' Professor Mark Baldwin, American Neutrality, p. 96. = Ih., p. 96. 



134 THE PEOPLE OF AC TION 

Let us recognize the original character of 
this utterance; it is specifically American. 
These recognized rights are neither purely 
negative nor yet properly positive. The Amer- 
ican asks nothing of the state except guarantees, 
but he demands that they he complete: he is 
not to be threatened as to his life, nor disturbed 
in his liberty, nor checked or delayed in his pur- 
suit of happiness. It is not the purpose of the 
state to make the individual happy: he has 
not even "the right" to hapi)iness, nor even, 
in the large sense in which the revolutionists 
of 1848 understood it, the right to life. The 
hypothesis of a Providence-state, dear to cer- 
tain sociahstic schools, is repugnant to the 
Yankee spirit of initiative. He does not ask 
earthly manna of the public powers, the crumb 
which shall put him beyond the reach of want, 
for he recognizes no power greater than his 
own. He relies upon his own energ\% his un- 
aided power, to make his life, and it may even 
be said that he knows how to make himself 
happy without help. "I do not want to live 
under philanthropy, I do not want to be taken 
care of by the government cither directly or by 
any instrumentality through which the govern- 
ment is acting. / want only to have right and jus- 
tice prevail so far as I am concerned. Give me 



THE NATIONAL IDEAL 135 

right and justice and I will undertake to take 
care of myself." ^ Even those whom, like 
President Wilson, one would sometimes be in- 
chned to look upon as interventionists, have a 
horror of the intrusion of the state into the affairs 
of private individuals, and limit it to a mini- 
mum. "It is always insupportable that govern- 
ment should intervene in your private activities, 
unless it be to set them free." ^ 

All that the American asks of the state, 
therefore, is to guarantee him the full and free 
use of all his faculties, physical, intellectual, 
and moral. Not by a passive and platonic re- 
spect; he demands efficient collaboration, an 
effort parallel to his own. The individual has 
a "right" to "the pursuit of happiness." It is 
for the government to clear his road, to remove 
obstacles, to assure him freedom of move- 
ment. The state must give him a fair field 
at home, and be his watch-dog abroad. At 
home its function is first of all to secure his ac- 
tivities from check, but it is also to stimulate 
them, to point their way, to guide them into 
new fields where the prospect of success appears 
to be best assured. With regard to foreigners 
it is to act as in some sort a filter: it must close 
the door to products which would compete 

* Wocxlrow Wilson, The New Freedom, p. 198. ' lb. 



136 THE PEOPLE OF ACTIOX 

with Ajnerican industry upon its own soil, as 
also to such social derelicts as would live as 
parasites at his expense; but it must open the 
door wide to manufactured objects which home 
industry fails to protluce, as well as to works 
useful to develop its productivity. In both 
cases it has in view only the rights and interests 
of the .Vmerican citizen. Practising this kind 
of "sacred selfishness" it enables him to use all 
his powers to their highest point, while at the 
same time it is careful not to act in his place. 
It gives him facilities, means of action, but it 
never does his work for him. The individual 
alone counts, indtn^d, but he may count only 
upon himself. *'Ia4 the individual be, if he 
will and can be." 

The immediate corollary of individual free- 
dom is national liberty. A citizen should exer- 
cise his rights, put forth his energ>', in the na- 
tion of his choice. A mother country should 
be consented to, not miposed. Thus the idea of 
personality naturally extends from the individual 
to the colkvtivity. Every nation is a moral 
person that should shape its own destiny. It 
has not, we must observe, an existence of its 
own outside of and distinct from the ptxiple who 
constitute it. It is only the expression of a col- 
lective and so to s;iy unanimous aggregation of 



THE NATIONAL IDEAL 137 

individual wills, which alone count. It exists 
as does an "association," which, outside of the 
associates that compose it, is only a statute, a 
sort of codification of essential agreements. 
But, as such, this association holds a rank at 
once ideal and real among legal existences. It 
has rights to assert, claims to enforce, ^^^len 
it speaks it is regarded as expressing the opin- 
ion of all who compose it, by whom and for 
whom it exists. From the day when it ceases 
to express them faithfully, it has only a fictitious 
existence, and should be dissolv^ed to make room 
for a new grouping which shall really express 
the will of the contracting parties. 

Now it is precisely this that has legitimatized 
the founding of the L^nited States as a nation. 
Until then bound to the mother country, New 
England held to Old England only by habit 
and constraint. Thence the right of the Ameri- 
can people to "assume among the powers of 
the earth the separate and equal station to 
which the laws of Nature and of Nature's God 
entitle them." "Equal station," that is to say, 
repudiation of all subordination, all allegiance 
of people to people as of man to man. One 
people is worth as much as another, just as one 
man is worth as much as another, neither more 
nor less, and for precisely the same reasons. 



138 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

"Separate station," that is to say, total and 
even jealous independence of a nation whieli, 
at least in its beginning, affirms its sincere de- 
tachment from pAiropean interests, but insists 
that in return Europe shall not meddle with its 
own. Euroi)e for Europeans, and America for 
Americans; thus is individuahsm exalted into 
a doctrine. 

The government of the United States was 
constituted in opposition to despotism, and the 
first right that it insisted upon was that of 
righteous insurrection against the oppressor. 
After enunciating the liberties which it claims 
for the individual, the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence lays stress upon the revolutionary 
idea. "To secure these rights, governments are 
instituted among men, deriving their just powers 
from the consent of the governed. . . . When- 
ever any form of government becomes destruc- 
tive of these ends it is the right of the people to 
alter or to abolish it." Again, and above all, 
"when a long train of abuses and usurpations, 
pursuing invariably the same object, evinces 
a design to reduce them under absolute des- 
potism, it is their right, // ?*.v their duty [italics the 
author's], to throw off such government, and to 
provide new guards for their future security." 

No doubt these utterances were directed 



THE NATIONAL IDEAL 139 

against English domination, but they have the 
value of a principle, and transcend the circum- 
stances which gave them birth; they express 
the very meaning of the American charter and 
of every truly democratic charter. They lay 
down the immovable foundation of individual 
liberty : A government has no existence of its own. 
It has no inherent rights, but only duties 
toward the collectivity, and only the extremely 
limited and severely controlled rights expressly 
conferred by the collectivity to make possible 
the discharge of its duties. Derived from no 
transcendent principle, it has no sovereignty. 
The sole sovereignty is popular sovereignty 
drawing from individuals its force and the reason 
for its being. 

Thence this necessary. consequence: A strong 
government is not necessary; a weak government 
is necessary that the individual may be strong. 
The strength of a government is in directly in- 
verse ratio to the weakness of the governed. 
We may judge by Germany, whose Chancellor, 
the organ of the Emperor, imposes his will upon 
the Reichstag and the nation. The Americans, 
having suffered, and especially having taken the 
risk of greater suffering, have recognized and 
warded off this danger. Their entire political 
life has developed in the direction of the weak- 



140 THE PKOPLK OF ACTION 

ening of public powers and I lie strcnglhening 
of private liberties. Essential decisions have 
always come from the very substructure of the 
j)eople. Action has always i)resupp()sed the 
consent of public opinion. The Ajucrican may 
permit Inmself to be convinced; he will never 
suffer himself to be commanded. 

Consequently there are as few and as weak 
relations between the governing classes and the 
governed as possible. Washington proudly as- 
serted that "among all the governments hitherto 
instituted among men, there has been none con- 
taining more checks and barriers, and barriers 
more difficult to overturn, against the introduc- 
tion of tyranny." ' The Ajncrican knows that 
he has made a tool to be used, not a master to 
be served. 

But that this should be the case, the people 
of the United States must needs be very strong. 
Laissez allrr soon degenerates into anarchy 
where there is not a "regulated freedom." 
Washington himself more than once showed his 
concern on this point. He even went so far, in 
a private letter, as to suggest a "coercive 
power." ^ The event proved his fears to have 
been unfounded. Liberty was not regulated 
from without, but it learned how to regulate 

'Quoted by Fabrc, Wajhingtou, p. 310. * 76., p. 468. 



THE NATIOxNAL IDEAL 141 

itself, without appealing to guardian or master. 
Not that there is not in the United States a 
better class that leads and a crowd that follows. 
In this society of equals, all in a sense constitute 
the better class — not by intelligence or intellec- 
tuality — the race is rough-hewn and ill educated 
— but by will, by the power to work, by the sense 
of initiative. Their activities do not need to 
be guided from without, as a shepherd guides 
his flock, for there is no flock. There are no 
moujiks in the United States. Every one knows 
how to guide himself, to decide for himself. 
Under conditions radically different and upon 
a vaster scale, the American republic offers a 
point of resemblance to the Athenian republic: 
it is a republic of men. What the citizen of 
Attica was by culture and refinement of thought, 
the citizen of New York and Chicago is by the 
strength, the harshness even, of his indefatigable 
activity — an autonomous creature. 



142 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

III 

THE UNION 

Heterogeneous character of the United States. — They form a 
union, but not a unit. — Autonomy and equality of the 
various states. — Possible eonflioLs between states and 
union. — FlexibiHty of the unitie<l organization. 

"Union and lihtTly"; sucli is the device of 
the great repnhlic ])eyon(l the sea, liberty in 
and l)y union, union at once the guarantee and 
the instrument of liberty. 

But to posit the j)ro})lcni is not to solve it, 
and the ditliculty is to reconcile two terms that 
seem to be antagonistic. How conserve the 
integral liberty of each without diminishing 
the strength which results from I lie union of 
all.^ How maintain and strengthen the bond 
which alone can insure the cohesion of the in- 
dividuals witliout trenching upon their rights? 
The Ajnerican solution, at once realistic and 
idealistic, is a legal .solution. Nothing but a 
legal bond can ])c at once strong enough to 
insure the unity of the whole and flexible enough 
to permit the relative independence and liberty 
of movement of tlie parts. The power of the 
politician is, therefore, lessened while tliat of 
the judge is increased. The dominating idea 
in the United States is not the idea of tlie atatc 



THE NATIONAL IDEAL 143 

but of the constitution. It is the law which 
finally brings unity into this heterogeneous 
mass. 

Heterogeneous it is indeed politically, and 
that is what at first strikes the visitor. There 
is no centralization in America; the radiation 
of the administrative power begins on all sides 
and ends nowhere. The idea of primacy is 
utterly lacking and forbids the constitution 
of any body in which authority, coming from 
above, spreads abroad to the lowest through 
a series of ramified channels. In America the 
administration does not function as a whole. 
The administration is not a whole. "It is a 
group of persons, each of whom depends individ- 
ually upon the President and implicates his 
responsibility. There is no political unity, no 
collective responsibility." ^ So strong is the 
individualistic imprint upon this people that 
it appears in that which, by definition, seems 
inevitably to eliminate it, this aggregate of 
functionaries. A functionary is an individual 
who is responsible to another individual for 
his individual acts. He has not to protect sub- 
ordinates or to be protected by superiors; he 
operates in his sphere of operations with more 
liberty but at his own risk. And his respon- 

* Bryce, The American Commonwealth, I, p. 87. 



144 TIIK PEOPLE OE ACTION 

sibility, in IIr- lung run, is appreciated by his 
electors. 

This gives a strange aspect to the country. 
One seeks in vain the strong tinil)er-\vork, I lie 
solid trussing, which ui)h()lds this vast body. 
One would say that this immense organism is 
that of an invertebrate. 

In the first place America is a union and 
not a unit ; it is formed by the juxtaposition of 
independent states which drew together in 
the interest of self-defense; but each of which, 
above all things, made a point of preserving 
its independence and individual physiognomy. 
Here again the resemblance to Greece comes 
naturally to mind. In ancient tijnes there was 
never, strictly speaking, a Greece, and yet there 
was a Greek people. Tlie various cities, Thebes, 
Athens, Corinth, Sparta, the islands, had each 
its constitution, its laws, its manners. The state 
was limited to the polis. Let danger threaten 
from without, an oriental invasion, for instance, 
and they came together spontaneously; but 
diversity remained even in the uniting of in- 
terests and the community of aspirations. In 
different proportions there was something anal- 
ogous to the alliance which, at the present day, 
brings the civilized na'tions together in a compact 
union to struggle against German imperiali.sm. 



THE NATIONAL IDEAL 145 

It was an alliance of the same order that 
united the States^ and organized them into a 
confederation. America worsted the potentate 
as Greece checked the invader, by binding into 
a Society of States (harbinger and model of the 
Society of Nations of which Mr. Wilson dreams) 
these groups, distinct in fact but united in 
a single thought of freedom. Drawn together 
at once by their interests and their ideal, the 
countries that formed the union consented to 
a solid and durable bond, but refused fusion. 
They simply formed a mass against the common 
enemy, retaining only so much of national unity 
as was strictly necessary for attaining the de- 
sired end. 

Therefore they fully proposed to conserve 
as individuals the independence which they 
had conquered as a group. And in this way 
the United States, constituting themselves such, 
presented the strange and somewhat hybrid 
aspect of a creature at the same time one and 
many: among themselves they were a union; 
to the eye of the foreigner they were forming 
a yiation. 

No doubt in the course of time distinctions 
faded away, and there was a tendency toward 
fusion ; but it is still very far from being realized. 
Many things naturally retard it: the immensity 



146 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

of the Ajnerican continent, opposing interests 
wliicli, after long causing friction l)et\veen the 
North and the South, in our (hiys is more mani- 
fest between tlie East and the West, the inliahi- 
tants of the Pacific coast fixing their eyes and 
their puri)()ses upon Asia, tliose upon the Athuitic 
shore turning theirs toward Europe. To these 
we may especially add State constitutions, giv- 
ing a material form to local j)atriotism. 

Such a conflict of interest, though attenuated, 
still persists between the state and the iiniou, 
between particularism and federalism. The 
American accommodates hunself to it well 
enough. He admits as natural "the existence 
of a double government, a double allegiance, a 
double patriotism." ' He is nationally "double" 
with almost as much ease as we are "sim]de." 
"Every American citizen lives in a duality of 
which Europeans, always excepting the Swiss 
and to some extent the Germans, have no ex- 
perience. ... lie (the American) lives under 
two governments and two sets of laws; he is 
animated by two patriotisms and owes two 
allegiances." - 

It is true that these do not lie in the same 

• Bryc*', op. cil., I, p. 3i. 

' Ih., II, p. 4<(J. Thr important — nnd ofton if not Hnnprmus nt least 
mrnacin^ — ffTwt.s of this (Inalify have \mh-u indicati^i by Mr. lialdwin, 
American Neiitratity, first li-<tiin', pp. .'J 7 and yxi.wim. 



THE NATIONAL IDEAL 147 

plane. One is the government that might be 
called normal and, so to speak, daily; it is the 
rule. The other, if not abnormal, is at least an 
intermittent government; it forms the excep- 
tion. Even at the present time it may almost 
be said that America does not exist every day. 
It exists especially in periods of crisis: the day 
of a presidential election, of the explosion of 
the Maine, or of the rupture of diplomatic re- 
lations with Germany. On such days, if one 
may still discern in the whole mass a few ele- 
ments of resistance — certain imperfectly as- 
similated fomenters of trouble — they are swept 
away by the broad current which, carrying all 
wills with it, makes the nation. This is the 
America that applauds Mr. Wilson's Message, 
that receives Marshal Joffre and Minister 
Vivian i in a delirium of joy, that rushes in a 
mass to the enlistment offices. But calmness 
soon returns, the bond is relaxed without being 
dissolved, and local self-interests resume their 
sway. 

But, notwithstanding fears manifested in 
Washington, this is not dangerous. In spite of 
a few clashings and frictions, harmony exists 
between the whole and the parts. Men ac- 
cept and, even with the founder of the nation, 
insist upon '*a central power safeguarding order 



148 TUK VVA)VLK OF ACTION 

and the common interest, ' ' and this power in 
its turn sliows itself as respectful of the liberty 
of the states as they and itself are resj)ertful 
of the liberty of the citizens. For it is liberty 
which at once sustains the entire edifice and all 
its parts. "America is a republic of republics."^ 
Within itself each State retains its indepen- 
dence, elects its own governor and other officers, 
and makes its own laws. In its relations with 
the others it stands on tenns of equality. If in 
the House of Representatives each State is rep- 
resented according to its population, it sends 
two delegates to the Senate whatever its rela- 
tive importance, whether its inhabitants be 
numbered by thousands or millions. Politically, 
there are no small IStafcs, any more than indi- 
vidually there are lesser citizens. This is evi- 
dently explained by the fact tliat the Constitu- 
tion was careful to consider the susceptibilities 
and anticipate the solicitudes of the less power- 
ful States; it was the work of "restless indi- 
vidualists";^ but we must also observe the care 
for justice which animated all the constituents; 
not one of them would have permitted «any en- 
croachment upon his own rights, nor permit 
himself to encroach upon those of others. These 

' FBhtr, n'a^hinginn, p. 90. ' BrjTp. op. rH., I, 33. 

* Boiitmy, F.tudc.t dc droit conslilutiotinrl, p. IM. 



THE NATIONAL IDEAL 149 

"Brothers of Freedom" formed a ''Society of 
Equals." 

More than this. This Union, formed by the 
will of the contracting parties, refused to add 
to itself by force. For a policy of annexation 
it proposed to substitute a policy of association. 
Every time that it enlarged its bounds it was 
as the result of mutual consent. When Terri- 
tories were transformed into States they by 
that act acquired all the rights of the States 
that had earlier been constituted. America has 
suffered too much in her own person not to re- 
volt from employing European methods of col- 
onization or even of protection. She calls to 
freedom those whom she welcomes to herself. 
And, as in all her other enterprises, the com- 
mercial aspect meets the ideal view. Her de- 
velopment is that of a prosperous company 
which, while extending its sphere of business 
and taking in new associates, immediately gives 
to all a share in its profits, granting to eleventh- 
hour stockliolders the same advantages as to 
those of the early days. Her politics admit of 
no such factors as "original" and "preferred'* 
shares. 

It is certain that she desires to extend her- 
self, and it is impossi})le not to recognize the 
existence of an American imperialism. But 



150 TlIK PKOPLK OF A( TI()\ 

even in licr territorial ambitions she proposes 
to base aet upon ri^'lit. Aeeording to her defini- 
tion, and very sincerely, the Monroe Doctrine 
is only a just insistence upon American inde- 
pendence. When she proclaims that " the Amer- 
ican continents, by the free and independent 
position which they have assumed and main- 
tained, may henceforth never be considered by 
any European Power as a domain for coloniza- 
tion," she only takes her stand against all for- 
eign intervention, rather setting limits to Eu- 
ropean ambition than asserting her own. She 
has lately uttered the same sentiment by the 
mouth of one of her ambassadors, Mr. D. J. 
Hill. The Monroe Doctrine expresses the right 
of independent nations to maintain their own 
forms of government, and to protest against 
any nation entering upon a j)olicy of such a 
nature as to endanger their security.^ It is, 
therefore, not a menace to any established 
rights, l)ut a veto opposed to the acquisition 
of new rights, of new claims with which the 
Old World might propose to burden the New. 
There is, perhaps, a hope (doubtless more dis- 
tant to-day than ever before) of seeing at a 
future day the great neighbor States, Canada 
and Mexico, entering the Union. Hut if that 

' Let Etals-Vnii ct la France. Aildrcs-s (if Mr. Hill. 



THE NATIOxNAL IDEAL 151 

day ever comes, it will not come through pres- 
sure exerted by the United States, but will be 
the result of the spontaneous adherence of the 
nations concerned. And in such a case their 
independence and "self-government" would be 
fully respected. 

IV 

THE PRESIDENT 

He symbolizes the Union. — His powers. — His moral strength: 
he is the conscience of the United States. — His judicial and 
arbitral character. — He holds his power only from the 
people. 

If liberty is everywhere, union, often less 
manifest, is symbolized in a striking manner, 
not in a parliament, but in a man, the President 
of the republic. This is the secret of his power 
and authority; it explains their increase in times 
of national crisis. Certainly he could not say 
with Louis XIV, of whom he is the absolute 
antithesis, "I am the state," but he might as- 
sert, giving the word its true meaning, "I am 
the nation." He does more than represent it, 
he expresses it, not only in the eyes of the world 
but in his own eyes. 

There is, perhaps, nowhere upon earth so 
marked a personality as that of the President of 
the American Repul)lic. It leaves far behind 
it that of an Emperor of Germany or a Czar of 



152 THE PEOPLE OE ACTION 

Kiissia — wlu'ii lliissia liad a Czar. To find its 
('(Hii\al(*nt \\r must look to the \'atican, and we 
sliall sec that, in fact, the comparison is not 
I)ur(>ly artificial. \lv exercises a true pontificate, 
tejnj)oral and sjjiritual, in his country. 

If sucli a tliin*^ exists anywhere in this land 
of liberty, its power is in him, and in hijn only 
— so far as it is in a man. It is not in Congress, 
however nmch during recent years the latt(T 
lias endeavored to extend its authority. It is 
to he found only in this "President, invested 
with almost royal i)rerogatives," ^ before whom 
more than one constitutional European mon- 
arcli would indeed appear in a sufficiently hum- 
hie light. His personal influence is considera- 
ble. In all American life he is almost the only 
man who counts. The rest exist only in rela- 
tions with him. His jninisters are his clerks. 
He alone is responsil)le to Congress, which, 
during his entire term of office, has no other 
weapon against him than the procedure of "im- 
])eachment." He is armed with the irio, which 
susj)ends their decisions. He communicates 
with them by messages, and receives directions 
from them much less than he lays upon them his 
own. He is not more or less relegated to the 
.sliade, as in Erance, where the jxTsonalily of 

' Izoulet, pn-fuii' ti) tlu' tniiislatiini of Tin- .\tw Freedom, p. 10. 



THE NATIONAL IDEAL 153 

the head of the state is overshadowed by that 
of the president of the Council. He resolutely 
takes the headship of the country, and during 
all his magistral ure he has almost the figure of 
a sovereign. Finally, he is re-eligible, in prin- 
ciple, indefinitely, at the conclusion of his term, 
and in fact he is generally re-elected, though 
only once. His election evokes a veritable na- 
tional crisis over the entire territory of the Union. 
It would seem at such a moment, not so much 
that the life of a party is at stake — American 
parties are, on the whole, factitious — as the very 
existence of the country. The American seems 
to be asking himself: "What shall I be? To 
what am I coming.^ What will my choice do 
to myself.^" 

The peril is, in fact, hardlj^ less than this. 
The President of the United States is, at the 
same time, the representative man of the United 
States and the arbiter of its destiny. The na- 
tion is incarnated in him, and is transformed by 
him. If he truly understands the part he has 
to play, he should be, not "the President of 
a national council of administration," as Mr. 
Wilson reproached his predecessors with having 
too often been, but "the President of the people 
of the United States." ^ He is only their 

' Woodrow Wilson, The New freedom, p. H. 



154 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

"mouthpiece," their "speaking-trumpet." "It 
is not liis l)iisiiiess to judge /or the nation, hut 
to judge through the nation as its si)okesman 
and voice." ' 

Thence his function appears to l)e formida!)le, 
and even surpasses that of the head of a State. 
He is not there merely to govern. His true 
duty is to speak the riglil and cause it to be- 
come a fact. He is generally a hiwyer, and it is 
fitting that he should be a legislator. Briefly 
invested with exorbitant powers, it is expected 
of him to have a will and to realize it in acts. 
A dictator in fact, he exercises a true moral 
dictatorship. Far more than the representative 
of the United States, he is its conscience. He 
is the only man in this country, this continent, 
this world, who is the elect of the entire terri- 
tory, the only man who is chosen not by a 
fraction of the country but by the country as a 
whole. This explains how, as soon as he is 
declared elected, all bow before him; his op- 
j)onent of the day before is the first to pay his 
r(\s|)ects to him publicly. In him he salutes 
the nation, and the nation salutes itself. 

But this nation, made up of so many diflferent 
elements, is a confused, inconstant, excitable 
mass, ignorant of itself, seeking to know itself, 

' lb., p. 73. 



THE NATIONAL IDEAL 155 

but purposing to be. It expects of the Presi- 
dent that he will utter the moral formula by 
which it may discover and express itself. In 
him and by him it hopes to assume a body, a 
definite form, and become conscious of its des- 
tiny. We have already said that one author 
has spoken of his prerogatives as "almost royal." 
A better word would have been "pontifical." 
He rules over minds quite as much as over 
bodies. "They who administer our physical 
life therefore administer our spiritual life." ^ 
He is charged in some sort to make sure that 
each one obtains his daily bread, and especially 
to distribute among men that spiritual bread, 
justice. He is where he is that justice may be 
upon earth for all men of good-will. This is 
not to be a king, but a pope. 

In fact, his messages have in some sort an 
encyclical tone. He has, and he sometimes 
gives to others, the feeling that he is exercising 
a providential mission. He speaks to his ad- 
herents in the language that they like to hear 
and that suits their nature, the language of 
jurisprudence. He understands, he defends, 
sometimes he furthers the interests of his peo- 
ple, but he does it always under the aegis of the 
law. 

' Ih., p. 199. 



156 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

Thence flows his aiitliority, and it is immense. 
America not only returns to licrsclf in hijn, she 
finds herself there. It is liis t(j cause the 
America of to-morrow to sprin*,' from the Amer- 
ica of to-day, a better world from the present 
world. In the clear but ai)j)arently somewhat 
dry and rigid form characteristic of this people, 
there is in him something of the inspiration of 
the proj)het, to the end I hat lie may exercise 
that which is more than a function, a sacer- 
dotal office. 

But here let no one deceive himself; his 
strength comes from the people whose expres- 
sion he is, from the public opinion that finds in 
him its voice, and even its soul. *'The Presi- 
dent is personally responsible ... to the peo- 
ple by whom he is chosen." ' Whatever may 
be his personal worth — and it is often consider- 
able — it is nothing by itself and without this 
point of support. He may have no personal 
ambition, may not dream of establishing his 
dominion over the country by a sudden act of 
force. He may only seek his way among all 
the currents of contrary opinions and endeavor 
to become at every moment the faithful repre- 
sentative of what is confusedly thought and 
willed by the mass from whose bosom he has 

> Br>cc, op. cU., I, CD. 



THE NATIONAL IDEAL 157 

emerged, and over whom he hovers as arbiter 
and guide. Not that he should be their reflec- 
tion or echo, content himself with a sheep-like 
and passive execution of orders emanating 
from below. On the contrar}^ he must have 
a powerful personality, one in which are con- 
centrated all other personalities, and which, 
when the moment for action comes, can per- 
form precisely what the nation expects of him, 
that is, of itself. 

There are, indeed, some peculiarly tragic mo- 
ments in which, in the midst of the hurricane, 
the national will feels that it should decide for 
itself, and knows not clearly what decision it 
should make. In such moments of indecision 
and hesitation, which every man knows, and in 
which his destiny is fixed, when one is at the 
parting of the ways, it may well be that a strong 
individuality may direct the nation into one 
path rather than another. But even then it 
simply makes a channel for energies already 
existing and reveals them to themselves. Per- 
haps, before President Wilson said the decisive 
words, America was not sure that she desired 
war with Germany ; perhaps if he had not uttered 
them (admitting the possibility of such a thing) 
she would not have entered the arena. But 
from the day when they were spoken she recog- 



158 TIIK PEOPLE OF ACTION 

nizcd them as licr ow/i. \\y liis lips the nation 
had pronounced its \rrdi(t. 

Such is tlu' power of the President. Ilis au- 
thority is moral and legal, the authority of a 
judge. lie does not so much reach decisions as 
j)ronounce sentences. 

Thus we are led up to what constitutes the 
very essence of American pohtics, the idea of 
justice, and to that which is, for Americans, 
as the Table of the Law, on which are engraved 
the imperishable i)rinciples of justice, the Con- 
stitution. 

V 

THE LAW 

Prc-cmincncp of the jii<liciul power. — -The Suprem/' Court the 
guardian of the CuriJititutiun. — I'nity of legal orientation. 
— Every functionary is a judge giving sentence in ac- 
cordance with the Constitution. — The States "centrifugal 
forces," and the Constitution the "centripetal force." — 
Justice and legality the bases of the .Vmerican nation. — 
"Honesty is the best policy." — The unity of America and 
"the Indestructibility of the Union." 

In the LInited States tlie real power is not 
political but judicial. Al)ove Congress, above 
the President, stands the Supreme Court, the 
guardian and interpreter of the Constitution. 
Composed of si-vcn federal judges who are 
statesmen as well as legists, il is this court 
whieli finally by its interpretations and decisions 



THE NATIONAL IDEAL 159 

maintains the moral and political unity of the 
country. 

Imagine the French Cour de Cassation in- 
vested with such powers as this court creates — 
not only uniformity of legal process in private 
quarrels, not only a like uniformity in those 
differences which bring individuals into con- 
flict with the machinery of the State, but also 
uniformity of views and tendencies in differences 
between the States themselves. The Supreme 
Court is a great council which legally and sover- 
eignly decides all questions of every order, 
public or private, political, social, even diplo- 
matic, which can arise within the Union. It 
summons nations as well as individuals to its 
bar. For the different fractions of the United 
States it is what The Hague Tribunal would 
fain have been for the different fractions of the 
civilized world. The State of Ohio pleads 
against the State of New York as, in a memora- 
ble case, France pleaded against Italy. But 
instead of being a special tribunal whose chief 
function is to conciliate and treat with circum- 
spection the parties at issue, instead of always 
being aware over its head of that "appeal" to 
arms which, at least until now, has been the 
ultimate reason of peoples in litigation, it pro- 
nounces with authority, and all bow before its 



IGO THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

decisions. Superior to tlie legislative power, to 
the executive power, willi no risk of being held 
in check by a military power that has no exist- 
ence, the Supreme Court represents that true 
principle of unity which has hitherto been sought 
in vain. The unity of the I'nited States is less 
one of fact than of ideal. If one may so speak, 
it is a unity of juristic orientation. 

Just as in France the entire magistrature, in 
all its ranks, has its eyes fixed on the Cour de 
Cassation (Court of Appeals), and draws in- 
spiration from its decisions, so here every 
magistrate of every order and degree turns 
toward the Supreme Court to tlirow light upon 
and determine their decisions. They know, 
indeed, that by hearkening to or imitating it 
they run no risk of de|)arting from the law. 
The Supreme Court has always confined itself 
to its judicial functions, has placed itself out- 
side of and above all individual and even na- 
tional questions, has ncncr discredited its au- 
thority by permitting itself to be influenced by 
I)olitical i)assi()ns or prepossessions. It has 
always been true to its functions, which arc to 
act against the abuse of power and the violation 
of the Constitution. It considers "itself as a 
pure organ of llic hnr, conimi.ssioned to do jus- 
tice between man and man." ' 

> Rryc-r. op. cil., I. 376. 



THE NATIONAL IDEAL 161 

Thus the Constitution, interpreted by the 
Supreme Court, is to the American magistrate 
what the Code interpreted by the Cour de 
Cassation is to the French magistrate. It may, 
therefore, be understood that there exists a 
sohd if intangible bond between the members 
of this administration, which is yet so httle 
centraHzed and not at all pontifical. American 
office-holders have not in the least their eyes 
fixed upon a chief, a superior, upon w^iom they 
depend; their eyes are fixed upon the law, or 
rather upon the Constitution, which it is for 
them to apply in the sphere of their respec- 
tive functions. As a consequence they seek 
direction, not, as with us, in capricious and 
changeable ministerial instructions, but in im- 
mutable principles from which they may not 
depart. 

Thence it arises that, notwithstanding the 
faults and even the vices of some among them, 
notwithstanding the too numerous examples of 
corruption and venality in their ranks, they 
represent to their fellow citizens something en- 
tirely different from that which their European 
colleagues represent to those under their juris- 
diction. "The European often sees in the 
public functionary only force; the American 
sees in him the law. One may then say that in 



162 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

America a man never ()})eys another man, Ijut 
always justice and the law." ' 

Tlie fact that the functionary is elected, not 
named l)y the central power, can only reinforce 
the legal character with which he is clothed. 
His origin perhaps may lead to the suspicion 
that he is accessible to too many personal in- 
fluences, dominated by party or society spirit. 
Put, on the other hand, he has the confidence of 
the public. More than anything else the elected 
officer takes on the character of an umpire. 

This need of arbitration always makes itself 
strongly felt in young societies, .spontaneously- 
formed, whose rights are less clearly defined, 
their titles more readily disputable. We see it 
in the early days of the Roman re})ublic, we 
see it also in the American republic, of relatively 
recent formation. The magistrate there ap- 
pears .somewhat as a judge, having either to 
pronounce between private interests or in dis- 
putes continually arising between private per- 
sons and the society of which they arc mem- 
bers — village or county. 

But if every magistrate is something of a 
judge, the judge properly so-called seems like 
a privileged magistrate. In fact, even to-day 
he is clothed witli imnicnse political power. 

• De Tocqueville, De la Dimocratie en Amlriqiir, I, 157. 



THE NATIONAL IDEAL 163 

Such a conception is necessary in a country 
where society is still so near to a state of nature, 
and where, consequently, all possible power 
must be given to the law, to prevent the indi- 
vidual being subjected to the law of force. 

But the law itself sometimes risks being de- 
fective. It may be the work of a party; it may, 
at least in certain cases, have been made by 
uneducated and inexperienced legislators. In 
such cases it is the duty of the judge to pro- 
nounce, not in accordance with, but against the 
law. This is why the Americans have recog- 
nized in their judges the right to base their de- 
cisions upon the Constitution, and not upon 
the laws, and not to enforce laws that appear 
to them to be unconstitutional. It is indeed not 
enough to say that this is their right, it is their 
duty, an imperious precept. The humblest 
judge in an American State is obliged to pro- 
nounce upon the constitutionality of a law.^ 

A dreadful obligation, an exorbitant power, 
if ever there was one. The judge is the judge 
not only of cases but of laws; he is the judge 
not only of parties but of legislators. So that 
in each particular State in the Union generally 
this menace always hangs over the heads of 
those who make the law: they are themselves 

' Bryce. .16. Ed., p. 384. 



Kit Tin: PIOOPLK OF ACTION 

ajn('iKil)lc to tlic (•oiiscicncr of the judge enlight- 
ened by tlie Constitution. 

The Constitiilioii, whieh dominates all laws, 
cannot l)e modified hy a law, hut only by a direet 
])oj)idar vote. And this may oeeur, in a given 
Slate, only on exceptional occasions, and in 
the Union still more seldom. There is, then, 
something immulahlc in this land of universal 
change, and this something is the law of the 
laws. It may become more pliable with time, 
adapt itself to divers circumstances, but funda- 
mentally it remains identical with itself, and 
maintains the substantial identity of the Cnited 
States. It is in some sort the gazing-point of 
all citizens, causes all thoughts and wills to 
converge in one direction, ijnposes moral unity 
upon this fluctuating diversity. Everything 
gravitates toward it, and this is how unity is 
made among these scattered elements. Each 
atom acts upon its own impulse, but all arc at- 
tracted to the same sun. 

This is not a mere comparison, but the accu- 
rate expression of a fact. The difhculty, api)ar- 
ently insoluble, was to bring together in one 
unaccustomed movement elements carried along 
by diverse impulses. The diircrcnt States rep- 
resent so many "existing centrifugal forces," * 

' Rrycr, ib.. p. 11. 



THE NATIONAL IDEAL 1G5 

each seeking, like the planets of the solar sys- 
tem, to fly off in divergent directions. It was 
necessary, without suppressing them, to subject 
them to a centripetal force, which should bring 
them all into harmony while respecting the in- 
dependence of each. The United States dis- 
covered how to perform this feat. 

Look at the country. Everything seems to 
tend to resolve it into its constituent parts. 
Here, first of all, are distinct nations, with the 
inevitable rivalries and competitions which such 
distinctions imply. The only feature which 
they seem at first sight to possess in common 
is that in each there is nothing in common 
among the people that compose them. Every- 
where are only restless individuals, turned loose, 
hustling one another and being hustled in their 
turn. Every one goes at gee and haw, each 
taking his own way without caring what be- 
comes of his neighbor. It is a foam of States, 
each resolving itself into a foam of individuals. 
And yet equilibrium takes place, the nation 
emerges from the very movement that carries 
them all along. This is what there is in an 
association, unconscious, perhaps, but sincere 
and strong, in any great idea, in any principle 
of common action. "Hitch your wagon to a 
star," said Emerson to his fellow citizens. 



l(i(> TIIK PKOPLE OF ACTION 

Tli(\v all hitched theirs to the same star, the star 
of justice, which look on in their eyes the 
concrete form of the Constitution. Here is the 
fixed j)oint for the American, the object of his 
sijnple and tenacious faith. "H(^fore all else 
he hclieves in the Constitution, wliich protects 
life, liherty, and property." ' 

Is this to say that the Constitution is per- 
fect? No more than any other human work, 
and it has incurred many criticisms. Washing- 
ton, who saw and exaggerated its imperfections, 
finding in it "a host of vices and inexpedien- 
cies,"- blamed it for not giving sufficiently 
extensive powers to llie central governnicnt, 
and for "probably having too good an opinion 
of human nature." ' He feared that individuals 
would make bad use of the liberty that it granted 
thean. In fact, his reservations may well be 
understood; they were theoretically just, but 
they have not been practically justified. 

The truth is that the Americans have mar- 
vellously found the way to make use of the 
— perhaps only modiTately good — instrument 
which they had made. "The ijnperfections of 
the tool are the genius of the worker." * And 
tlie worker was incomparable. Mr. \Vilson 

• Lff l^tah-rni.i rt In Franrr. Adiln-ss of Mr Mill. p. i\l . 
^i.YWiTfi, Washington, li.ni. ' /6., p. 5^08. « /6.. p. 268. 



THE NATIONAL IDEAL 1G7 

quotes the conclusion reached by an EngHsh- 
man: "To show that the American Constitu- 
tion had worked well was no proof that it is an 
excellent constitution, because Americans 'could 
work any constitution.' " ^ As to the mechanism 
in itself, and the wheel-work that keeps in mo- 
tion the machinery of the State, there may be 
much to say in disparagement. But for such 
a people these are secondary points, negligible 
details. What they have been able to discern 
and to retain in the charter which they made 
for themselves is the spirit of legality and 
morality which inspires it. 

This idea of law is so deeply imprinted upon 
the heart of the American that we find it even 
at the basis of his Revolution. It was quite 
the opposite of a revolt, it was the resolute and 
well-considered protest of conscience. He was 
not moved to it by a vague desire for better 
conditions, or by impatience of external author- 
ity, but above all by the need of that inward 
moral authority, emanating from reason, which 
alone gives to life a solid basis, by the full pos- 
session of itself. "It was not urged on by dis- 
orderly passions, but went forward with a love 
of order and legality." ^ The Americans felt in 

' Bryrc, The American CommonweaUh. 

' Woodrow Wilson, The New Freedom, p. 234. 



1G8 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

177() with regard to their oppressor what lliey 
felt ill 1917 before the German nienaee, that 
the sole means of being free and ha])py is to 
be just. 

General Washington had, at that time, as 
clear a consciousness of this as Professor Wilson 
to-day. Eor Washington the republic will be 
moral or it will not be: "Our poHtics must 
have for its basis the purest principles of private 
morality, and the siime virtues which conunend 
the good man to the esteem of his fellows must 
conunend our republic to the esteem of the 
world. If there is any firmly established truth, 
it is the indissoluble tie between virtue and 
happiness, between the maxims of a just gov- 
ernment and the solid rewards of public pros- 
perity." ' "It is true, in the strictest sense of 
the word, that virtue and morals are the moving 
spring of a popular government." - And in his 
Farewell Address and political testament his 
last thought was the supreme affirmation of 
justice. "The path of duty is open before us; 
each step will show us that virtue is the best 
and the only true politics. . . . Ld us, thcrcJorCy 
us a natioiiy be just."' ' 

All who have followed after him, thinkers or 
statesmen, have spoken in the same terms. 

• J. Fubn-, op. cU.. p. 115. « lb., p. 343. ' lb., p. «0i. 



THE NATIONAL IDEAL 100 

Fiat justitia is the watchword which, inscribed 
in the Constitution, rules the development of 
American politics. Politics must he nursed upon 
the knees of morality. It was Emerson who 
said: "The o})ject of all political struggle is to 
make morality the basis of legislation. . . . 
MoraUty is the basis of government."^ Mr. 
Roosevelt preaches at the same time "the gospel 
of efficiency," and "the gospel of morality."^ 
President Wilson, before jilunging his country 
into the war that is to bring justice to the 
world, insists upon "a free and a just govern- 
ment."' All of them make the thouglit of 
Franklin their own: "Honesty is the best 
policy." 

Upon this point the leading minds of the 
United States have shown themselves immova- 
ble. Born of justice, they have always sought 
to guide their nation in the ways of justice. If 
they had held less high and firm the standard 
of Right, that rallying-point for the various por- 
tions of the Confederation, the latter would have 
been crushed and broken. It could not have 
survived its terrible crises, because these, over 
and above the interests at stake, were for it 
crises of conscience. The struggle against for- 

' Emerson, Ettayg. * Roosevelt, American Ideals, p. 35. 

» \\\\mn. The New Freedom, p. 218. 



170 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

ci^'ii oppression, against human slavery, and 
now against the menace of world-subjugation, 
have been so many manifestations of the spirit 
of justice which, after having permitted them 
to define and to reali/A' their national 'u\vd\, have 
at last led them to conceive and to atiirm their 
international ideal. 

There is, therefore, an ^Vnierica, and not some 
United States. There is an America because a 
country is something to will and to make in 
conunon, and this sojnething exists. All Ameri- 
cans insist upon "the indestructibility of the 
Union." * All conceive of their country as "an 
indissoluble Union of indestructible States." - 
Above all individual and local interests appears 
"the spirit of the Union," '' without which this 
"great whole" would never have been made.^ 

This spirit is not narrowly mercantile, but 
broadly human. It is without doubt an aspira- 
tion after hapj)iness, but happiness is not con- 
ceived as accessible by petty or indirect means. 
It can be reached only by the highroad, and 
this road must be o])en to all. To assure to 
each one the conditions of free development a 
country is necessary, a "great country." Now, 

' Bryoc, op. rit.. p. M2. » 76. 

» J. Fabrc. op. cU.. p. «60. « lb., p. 163. 



THE NATIONAL IDEAL 171 

it is the law alone which guarantees freedom. 
*'In our day the law must come to the assis- 
tance of the individual. It must come to his 
assistance to see that he gets fair play. That 
is all, but it is much." ^ 

We see that this liberty must be a just liberty. 
It refuses privileges or advantages gained at 
the expense of any one's independence. It 
lifts itself up against all aggressive or violent 
tendencies in men, classes, or peoples. It con- 
fers upon each the right to bring before the 
judge every iniquity of which he believes him- 
self to be the victim. It imposes upon the 
judge the duty of pronouncing always accord- 
ing to equity, even though, so to do, he be 
obliged to pass beyond the will of the legislator 
and appeal to the Constitution. America was 
to be that justice might be 

Liberty and justice: these are what repre- 
sent America to the citizen of the United States, 
a whole liberty, a whole justice for himself and 
for all, in a word, for man. We see in what 
sense America is a nation of individuals. It is 
a nation in order that the individual may be, 
that the ''rights of man" may cease to be a 
theoretic affirmation and become a power, the 
power of man realizing, in a political order, at 

' Wilson, op. cit., p. 284. 



172 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

once most flexihU* and most Ic^^al, all that it 
can he. '*Oiir part is to promote to their far- 
thest limits the ends of liberty and justice." * 

' Emeraon, Etsayt. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE INTERNATIONAL IDEAL 

I 

AMERICAN INTERNATIONALISM 

America an inter-nation. — Contrast between the disunited 
states of Europe and the United States of America. — Re- 
jection of the system of alliances and the poHtics of con- 
quest. — The Monroe Doctrine and American isolation. — 
The Americanization of the United States. — Tendency 
toward the conception and accomplishment of international 
duty. 

OUR part is to promote to their farthest 
Hmits the ends of hberty and justice." 
But to hold to the reahzation of na- 
tional aims would be to stop half way; fully 
to accomplish the task one must work for 
the aims of humanity. This is what the Amer- 
ican, impelled by the logic of his morals, ought 
to have done, and this is what he has done. 

More than any others, his people were called 
into being to understand and practise what 
one of them has called "its international 
duty." ^ Is she not herself an Inter-nation? 

' Royce, The Duty of Americans in the Present War, p. 3. 
173 



174 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

Not only, nor especially, because in her blood 
is niin<^le(l the hhxxl of many races, hut also, 
and princi|)ally, because she is a union or associ- 
ation of States, each one of which i)reserves its 
autonomy. It was therefore enough for her 
to extend to all civilization the conception 
which she has of herself, in order for her to 
feel her obligations to the whole world. 

No doubt we shall find in Europe, and nota- 
bly in England and France, the elements of 
such a conception, l)ut in those countries its 
character is at once theoretical and timid, while 
the Americans have boldly entered upon the 
road of realization. In our relations of nation 
with nation, we have in practice only alliances 
between equals, and certain countries even lay 
claim to the right of subordinating inferior na- 
tions to those that are superior, or who pride 
themselves upon being such. In short, we have 
either a balance of powers or power imposing 
itself upon weakness, but never relations of 
right in the international domain. 

An alliuncc is not a union. It expresses it- 
.self by agreements — which in themselves are 
precarious and reversible — between personali- 
ties who remain independent and do not even 
admit of a relation of mutual interdependence 
between them. Each develoj)s by itself, ac- 



THE INTERNATIONAL IDEAL 175 

cording to its own laws, no common organ bind- 
ing together their distinct governments. The 
alliance is limited to a certain number of deter- 
mined points; it functions only in cases pro- 
vided for (generally an eventual war) and pur- 
sues only definite objects. Furthermore, each 
one practises what has been more or less happily 
called "righteous self-interest," and refuses a 
close and, above all, a permanent collaboration 
with his allies. If the anticipated eventuality 
arises, the alliance works; when that ceases, it 
no longer functions, for its object is not to asso- 
ciate destinies but to co-ordinate efforts. And 
even while it functioned there was always the 
difficulty of constituting a connecting organism. 
We see this only too clearly in the present war — 
so much does each of the members dread to find 
one of his partners claiming supremacy. 

The word alhance in itself implies disunited 
states seeking to come to an understanding 
through compromises. It presupposes either war 
or a state of war; it is always directed against 
other nations who are dreaded or whom it 
threatens. It never has a directly pacific pur- 
pose. If, as may happen, it is made for the 
purpose of maintaining peace, it is always be- 
cause there is somewhere else a people or a 
group of peoples who propose to disturb the 



i7(; TiiK im:()PLK of action 

I>ea(V. Tli«' system of alliaiuvs, the only systnn 
liiduMlo known and j)ra{'tiso(l hy Eiiroixan 
diplomacy, roco^niztvs l)y its vrry rxistrncc {\w 
statt* of war as tlic normal condition of peoples. 
It is, therefore, from tht* international point of 
\iew, at l)est a palliative and, more often per- 
haps, a danger. "Triple alliance" aj^ainst "tri- 
ple entente" hriiigs about first tlu> necessity of 
armed peace, and then war let loose. 

The United States, fundajiientally pacific, 
have always refused to entiT upon any system 
of alliances whatever. This has heen their un- 
varyiiiij i)olicy with rt\i,'ard to Euroju', and 
even to-day the very special j)lace that they 
occupy in what may he called the great con- 
federation of Right makes thcjn rather an in- 
finitely precious auxiliary than an ally, proj^erly 
so called. They did not sign the Agreement of 
Ixnidon, and the end that they ])ursue, the peace 
of the world organized upon a legal basis, would 
ipso facto result in the sujiprcssion of all alli- 
ances and the establishment of a union in their 
]ilace. 

They do not desire a balance of Powers, be- 
cause they desire tliat there shall be no Powers 
in the particular sense of the word as here em- 
ployed, no permanent military forces always on 
a war footing, ever ready for aggression. The 



THE IXTERXATIOXAL IDEAL 177 

policy of equilibrium is tlui policy of the see- 
saw; its necessary, inevitaljle outcome is a 
fall into "hideous war." 

Wliere there is no alliance there is something 
worse, namely dojnination, open or concealed. 
It is concealed where a strong nation, by the 
very fact of its strength and its efficient mani- 
festation of authority, drags in its wake a weak 
nation whose independence is henceforth purely 
nominal. This policy Germany has always pro- 
I>oscd to follow in the case of small states. One 
among them, unusually small, Luxembourg, 
had only a semblance of life, and was the ob- 
ject of a disguised annexation by means of Ger- 
many's railroads. Before the war she attempted 
to subject Switzerland, Holland, and Belgium 
to a less evident but at times sufficiently effica- 
cious pressure, notably in the vote at the Got- 
hard Convention, which was her work. The atti- 
tude of King Constantine has shown that Greece 
was little more than a German colony. The 
Austro-Hungarian Empire, enormous as it was, 
had long before 1914 ceased to belong to itself, 
and the Turkey of Enver Pasha had not for a 
long time had any other government than that 
at Berlin. In fact, the persevering effort toward 
the constituting of Mittel-Europa (n delicate 



ITS TIIK PKOPLK OF ACTION 

euplioiiiisin f(»r Pan-(K'nnania) is only the sys- 
tematic extension of the saine principle. 

Sonietijnes the rou^'hcr inclliod of annexa- 
tion, pure and simple, is adopted. Too often it 
takes place at the expense of civilized peoples. 
This is seen in the domination of (icrmany over 
Poland and Alsace, that of Austria over Bohemia 
aiul the irrrdvntiat regions, and how many 
others! But notwithstanding far too numer- 
ous and painful examples, this is nevertheless 
the exception; the opi)ressed nation finally suc- 
cet^ds, as did Switzerland long ago and Greece 
more recently, in regaining its independence. 
Contrariwise, with regard to uncivilized peoples, 
the exception l)ecomes the rule: total seizure is 
effected under the form of colonization or, at 
best, of protectorate. 

Yet even here, we find, are degrees of domina- 
tion. Even when it does not go as far as the 
abominable treatment to which the Germans 
have subjected tlie natives of the Congo, it is 
at times very harsh, the conciuered populations 
being deprived of the right of self-admiinstration. 
This is generally the case with African colonies; 
it is also that of British India. At times, on 
the contrary, especially where European civiliza- 
tion has largely penetrated, and when the 
whites are in the majority, or at least in force. 



THE INTERXATIOXAL IDEAL 170 

a more flexible and generally happier method 
is adopted, that self-government whicli Eng- 
land has so marvellously applied to her divers 
dominions. They enjoy an autonomy of faet, 
if not of right. But none the less remains the 
domination, however restrained, of the pan^nt 
state over the colonies; tJie latter never stand 
upon the same level as herself. The Council 
of the Empire, instituted hy Mr. Lloyd George, 
tends toward, without fully effecting, union. 
It is in fact an Emjnre, not a Republic, whicli 
England has constituted throughout the world. 
Its elements are half co-ordinate, half subordi- 
nate; they do not form a voluntary and con- 
current group. 

There is, then, no European internationalism 
nor European patriotism, because there is no 
Europe. Europe has a geographical unity with- 
out having a political unity; she is a continent, 
or a large fraction of a continent, she is not a 
country. There is an America, one geograph- 
ically and in a large degree politically. There 
is, therefore, an American internationalism and 
an American patriotism. There is that strange 
and to us paradoxical thing, an international 
patriotism, subordinating to itself, without sup- 
pressing, the various national patriotisms. 



180 TIIK PKOPLK OK ACTION 

Europe is inullii)lo without Ixin;^' one; she 
is divided. Ameriea is at the same tinie one 
and iiudtiple; she is united. The patriotism of 
the United States is Ijeyond its cause. It de- 
clares itself with fervor, with i)ri(le, and, where 
Euroi)e is concerned, with a .shade of con- 
teuij)t. A citizen of America has no right to 
look back to his origin; from the moment when 
he sets foot upon the soil of the United States 
he should no longer know that he was ever 
Kussian or German, French, English, or Italian. 
He is there "to do the work there of an Ameri- 
can," * and to assimilate himself thoroughly 
with his new country. This country is incom- 
parable, "the greatest in the world," that to 
wliicli the world looks for its destiny. "Our 
nation is that one among all the nations of the 
earth which holds in its hands the fate of the 
coming years." ^ The citizen of the Union 
should not turn too curious a gaze, nor one too 
full of desire, toward the Old World; he should 
not seek to Euro])eanize himself, to count 
among "the weaklings who seek to be other 
than Americans." ^ Mr. Wilson, less ditliy- 
rambic than Mr. Roosevelt, is not less firm in 
his restrained ardor. He praises "the original 
Americanism, . . . faith in the ability of a con- 

• Roosevelt. Amrrican Ideah, p. i^i. '■ lb., p. 18. ' lb., p. ii. 



THE IXTERXATIOXAL IDEAL 181 

fident, resourceful, and independent people." ^ 
He proclaims that "the vigor of America 
pulses in the blood of every true American." ^ 
To such a country all ambitions are lawful, 
and the future opens before it an illimitable 
prospect. It will be impossible to be more 
strongly, more intensely, and at the same time 
more artlessly patriotic than they are in the 
United States. 

But at the same time the American has an 
international soul. This is because his country 
is itself a world, not only nor essentially be- 
cause of its extent, its physical greatness, the 
range of its climate, or the diversity of its pro- 
ductions, for from all these points of view Rus- 
sia is its equal or its superior. Xo, it is a world 
by its organization, because this country is a 
synthesis of many countries. It joins without 
absorbing them, it multiplies the force that 
inheres in each by the powers of all the others, 
while maintaining their special physiognomy. 
Each State is an individual sui generis, entirely 
free, bound to the other States by relations of 
right, not of fact. America springs from them, 
they do not arise from her. Thus there is no 
American colonization, no American sphere of 
influence, no American hegemony, no guardian- 

' Wilson, The Sev} Freedom, p. 5B. ' Wilson, op. oil., p. 99. 



182 TIIK PK()I»LK OF AC TION 

ship of strong i)\vr wt*ak, no rrlalioii of inastor 
and servant, or |)rol('(tor and j)n)tt'cl(Ml. All 
frtv, all ('(iiial, all nnitcd in the oiu* tlu)ui^'ht of 
maintaining^ and. if j)ossil)K', of increusinf^ this 
hluTty and o(|uality. America has \)vvn ahlc 
to rralizo wliat Washington called "tlic liarniony 
of nations," ' and hv this harmony to cause to 
spring to life a new, vernal, original nation, made 
of all the otiuTs, and without suj)pressing them, 
inc-luding thejn all in its spluTe of influence. 

Therefore it was logical that at a given moment 
of its development AmiTica shouKl in some sort 
take the lead in forming a league for the constitu- 
tion of a world nation. Not l)y the way of con- 
quest and annexation, wliich would he the very 
negation of its princij)les and a sort of moral 
suicide shortly preceding its natural disintegra- 
tion, hut hy a sort of generalization of the 
method to which it owed its existence. To form 
a "Society of Nations," let there he no mistake, 
is to form all society into one immense nation, 
in which each would find its place and keep its 
independence, while comhining in a harmonious 
whole, like that of which the United States 
afford a model. 

Of this conception the founders of America 
had from the beginning a clear vision. Wash- 

' J. Fiihrt', IVashington, p. ISJ. 



THE INTKUXATIONAL IDEAL 18.'i 

ington already drcajncd of iJic L'nited Slates of 
Europe. But thity were too practical to stop 
at dreams, or to forestall the time. Tlial was a 
future stage, and it was theirs to accomplish 
the present stage — to make America to-day in 
order tliat America might to-morrow make tlie 
world. They constituted a national type in 
contrast with the European type, a union and 
internation over against disunion and opposing 
countries. They must needs, therefore, detach 
themselves from Europe and systematically ig- 
nore Europe, shut themselves up in their "splen- 
difJ," or, rather, their colossal, "isolation." 
Til us Washington practised the prudent policy 
of "Every one in his own place," and conse- 
quently of "Every one for himself." lie hailed 
the Erench Revolution willi joy, somewhat 
mingled with solicitude, but he was careful not 
to offer to it any sort of support, or an equiva- 
lent for that which Lafayette had brought to 
his country. "I have always thought that ncj 
nation should meddle with the internal affairs 
of another nation." ^ If it was well to maintain 
and flevelop the system of exchange with the 
(Jid World, at least agreements should not go 
beyond the narrow sphere of commercial inter- 
ests. Keep every promise, but make the fewest 

» J. Fabre, op. cU.. p. 209. 



184 THE PEOPLE OF A( TION 

possible promises, was tlie principle. "Meet 
your ohlii^'iilions to the letter, hut it is my 
opinion that you shouKl not multiply them."* 
Ilenee the Monroe Doctrine was not slow to 
establish the principle that since European 
affairs did not concern America, Europe, by 
reciprocity, should refrain from concerning her- 
self with those of America. 

Do we find here a refusal to enter upon the 
international problem.^ No, in the sense that 
the Americans liad soIvihI it at ln)mc and for 
tliemselves. Yes, in this other sense that it 
was not yet posited in terms that permitted its 
successful treatment. There were two worlds, 
separated for the time by an abyss that it was 
impossible to bridge, and would ha\c been 
untunely to try to bridge. Their interest was 
to live on good terms, and the best thing for 
this was for neither to be too curious about the 
other. Here, again, interest coinciiles with jus- 
tice, as always is the case in America. My "in- 
terest" is to rcinain in my home, as your inter- 
est is to remain in yours; "justice" demands 
that neither of us shall cause the other any 
trouble, that there shall be on neither i)arl any 
encroachment upon our respective lil)erlies. It 
is for each people, as for each individual, to 

« lb., p. »33. 



THE I\TP:R\ATK)XAL ideal 185 

regulate his destiny by himself and as he under- 
stands the case. 

But the day comes when, in the nature of 
things, interest and justice, which had agreed 
upon separation, agree to work toward mutual 
approach. The policy of isolation is attractive, 
but, especially between great nations, factitious. 
In fact, they cannot isolate themselves. The 
development of exchanges, the invasion of for- 
eign products, the influx of Asiatic immigrants, 
the unmeasured ambition of Pan-Germanism, 
all conspired to bring into the foreground 
the question which had been provisionally set 
aside. It was necessary to take a position with 
regard to foreign nations, that the United States 
should adopt a foreign policy. AVhat policy ? 

It might, strictly speaking, be an aggressive, 
offensive policy, such as that to which Mr. 
Roosevelt at times seemed to incline; and there 
are, in fact, existing germs of American imperial- 
ism. The war with Spain was not popular for 
simple reasons of humanity, and by touching 
certain chords it would be not impossible to 
excite to a greater or less degree chauvinistic 
passions. But it would surely have been a 
flash in the pan. Before America could become 
truly militaristic it would have been necessary 
to create a new spirit, transform the soul of tlie 



isi; TIIK PEOPLE OE ACTION 

race, lead into new patlis, upon which they 
would l)e loth to enter, those energies and that 
spirit of adventure which until then had been 
occui)ie<;l in peaceful and productive works. It 
would l)c necessary to break with American tra- 
dition, with the spirit of the Constitution, with 
the very organization of the country. Such a 
thing is not impossible, especially in this nation, 
so ardent, so mobile, to whom the attraction of 
the new is so great, in which the love of inven- 
tion and of risk combine to fascinate the mind. 
But it is improbable, and the event has proved 
that it was not to be. 

Thanks t») President Wilson, the American 
ami not the European solution prevailed, the 
legal and idealistic solution. The United States 
resolutely chose for peace, for international 
peace, for the peace of the world. But this 
peace must be made actual, and it was to this 
end that they entered tlic war. They had 
never been more profoundly pacific than on the 
day when they declared war. J5ut to attain 
their object they must do double duty — one 
immediate, the military effort that would con- 
tribute to reduce to impotence "the enemy of 
humanity";' the other ulterior and chxMsive, 
properly constituting an international effort, 

' President Wilson's Message to Congress, .\pril i, 1917. 



THE INTERNATIONAL IDEAL 187 

which would consist in organizing the world 
upon the type of the United States, enlarging 
the American republic into a universal republic. 

II 

THE ARMY AND WAR 

American paoificism. — Non-exLstenr-P of a standing army. — 
Th»' Anu-rif-an militia. — " VolunU^crs of Liberty." — Their 
military and their civil values. — The American army an 
army of individiuiUt .—W 'dir and p<tax^(t. — War is cowardly, 
peace is couragwjus. — Refusal of wars of conquest. — All 
American wars have been wars of independence. 

America entered the war with stern resolu- 
tion. She had not made her decision without 
a struggle, not merely in opposing a strongly 
organized German party, lavishly paid by Ger- 
many, but in doing violence to her own prepos- 
sessions, and to those that were most legitimate, 
those of Puritans profoundly and soundly pacific 
who.se religious and moral principles oppo.sed 
every armed conflict, every appeal to force. 
Even in the President, most of all in him, the 
man of law and legality if ever there was one, 
the conflict of con.science was long and painful. 
But from the day when the decision was made 
it was irrevocable. America i.s making war 
with all her .soul and with all her powers; she is 
fighting, though she has a horror of militarism, 
and becau.se she has a horror of it. She is fight- 



ISS TIIK l^KOPLK (JF ACTION 

iii^' to destroy inilitarism in tiiiu' ami in .sj)acc, 
always and everywhere. 

All I he evidence f^oes to prove that slie did 
not will war, nor this war. In the first place, 
her entrance into the great conflict, though long 
foreseen, found her entirely disanned. 

Aniericji has never consented to form a stand- 
ing army. On each occasion when under the 
compelling power of facts she has been forced 
to overcome her repugnance and appeal to the 
fortunes of arms, she has addressed herself 
directly to the country. As soon as the danger 
was put down she has dismissed her troops. 
There is with her no rivalry between the civil 
and the military power, for the second is simply 
the first acquitting itself of exceptional func- 
tions. There is no fear of a pronunciamcnto; 
her first and greatest general was the most loyal 
of her citizens, and he gave the tone to all the 
others. "Never shall I be wanting in the 
higher duty which I liave to perform to my 
country. Never shall I violate the respect due 
to the civil authority, . . . Never shall I for- 
get that the sword is not to be drawn until the 
last moment, to defend public liberties, and 
that it is to be returned to the scabbard at the 
first moment when those liberties are safe." * 

' J. Fubn-, op. cit., p. 30. 



THE INTERNATIONAL IDEAL 189 

In adopting this attitude of systematic dis- 
armament the United States took full account 
of their privileged position. They had no fear 
of danger from without. On the north their 
neighbor is Canada, the most pacific and the 
most civilized colony of the nation that most 
abhors war. On the south lies Mexico, where 
the hotter Spanish blood contains elements of 
possible insurrection; but the country is weak, 
thinly peopled, divided against itself; a police 
force is sufficient to keep the Mexican bands in 
order, an army would be useless. The need of 
a better organized defense began to be felt only 
on the day when the hand of a foreign power, 
scattering gold and weapons, sought to turn 
that country against its powerful neighbor; up 
to that time it could pass for a practically negli- 
gible quantity. Danger, if danger there was, 
would be found, rather, beyond the sea, in the 
Japan of to-day or the China of to-morrow. 
At the worst it would merely require the crea- 
tion of a navy, not of an army. And though 
she has created the former, America has always 
pursued with regard to these powers a policy 
of harmony. The United States have no need 
of a military force. 

More than all, they have no desire for one. 
A nation of workin<^ men cannot be a nation 



190 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

of soldiers. The working man needs life for 
work, not for conquests. Let a time of danger 
come, lie will exchange his tool for a gun, hut 
simply that he may ward off the aggressor and 
return the more (juickly to his work. He is 
suspicious of a prctorian guard which, under 
color of defending his liberties, might very well 
some day confiscate tlicin. No sword, were it 
that of ^L Prudhomme, made to protect insti- 
tutions, and in case of need to oppose them. 
If at times a wave of chauvinism overspreads 
the country, one may be sure that it has no 
depth, and will sj)end itself in foam. Mr. 
Roosevelt's p()i)ularity, even in the most critical 
hours, was unable to overcome this invincible 
distrust. His thorough defeat when he pre- 
sented himself as candidate" for the presidency 
of the republic had no other cause. In vain 
did he exclaim, "Peace is a goddess only when 
she conies with sword girt on thigh"; ' he was 
not al»ie to induce his fellow citizens to form an 
army after the type of those of Europe. 

Tlie American army, then, will be only a 
militia. But let no one deceive himself; a 
militia thus motived can beat, and has beaten, 
the strongest regular armies. They proved it 
in the War of Independence. The "shirtless" 

' RooHcvelt, op. rit., p. )i49. 



THE INTERNATIONAL IDEAL 191 

of 1778, like our sansculottes of the Year II, the 
"barefoot and coatless"^ soldiers, under the 
most unfavorable conditions, worsted the thor- 
oughly equipped English troops, who were abun- 
dantly provided with everything. 

It was because the soldiers of the American 
Revolution, like our own, were fighting for their 
own cause: 

"Za liberie sublime emplissait leurs pensees.** 

WTien the English Government spoke slight- 
ingly of them, the more enlightened Lord Chat- 
ham did them justice before his peers: *'Our 
ministers affect to have no fear of inexperienced 
militia; I am afraid of any free militia." Lib- 
erty is the chief strength of democratic armies, 
for they recognize no discipline but that of 
liberty. And Washington, while fully admit- 
ting the difficulties of his enterprise, had no 
doubt of his mihtia: "The militia of this coun- 
try should be looked upon as the palladium of 
our safety, and the first guaranty in case- of 
hostility."^ 

The militia are citizen soldiers, those whom 
Congress called "The Volunteers of Freedom." 
Appearances were against them, and they still 

> J. Fabre, op. cU.. p. 233. » lb., p. 264. 



192 Tin: PEOPLE OF ACTION 

arc. De Rousiors, visiting Ihom, remarked 
tlicir uncovered throats, the neghgence of tlieir 
appearance, tlieir defective evolutions, their 
absence of unity, in short, all the outward ap- 
})earance of anarchy. Yes, hut with all the in- 
ward marks of true valor, founded on the au- 
tonomy of the fighter. "The man taken indi- 
vidually is superior to the soldier tliat we know 
in France."' The praise is not small if we 
consider that the French soldier is, of all the 
soldiers of Europe, the most individualized, lie 
whose worth as a man is, by coimiion consent, 
the most strongly developed. 

The American army, like tlie people from 
whom it proceeds, is tlie i)ro(luct of liberty. 
The qualities that it will soon show on our 
])at tie-fields are diametrically opposed to those 
which characterize the German army.. It is 
not a question of the shock of masses of which 
the units are merged and lost in the whole. 
P^acli one, on the contrary, manifests in the 
jSeld liis powers of initiative and of decision. 
As everywhere in America, unity cojnes from 
within, from below, not from without and above. 
Order spontaneously creates itself, parties or- 
ganize tluMuselves of their own accord as a whole, 
by virtue of their self-government. An army 

' Dc Rousicrs, op. cii., p. 605. 



THE INTERNATIONAL IDEAL 193 

of individuals normally responds to this nation 
of individuals. Each one knows why he is 
fighting, and that he is fighting /or himself, and 
thus he fights by himself. 

But being conscious of his personality, he de- 
mands that it be respected. Thus we find in 
him an American trait that has already been 
more than once noted: he furnishes work, he 
proposes to be paid its just price. Not that we 
have here to do with an army of mercenaries 
living only for their wages; it is exactly the op- 
posite. The American soldier is aware of what 
he ought to do, but he is also aware of what is 
due to him. It is always the sense of justice 
coinciding with that of interest: service for ser- 
vice, give and take. I give my life to secure 
the safety and the labor of my people ; the labor 
of my people, fully secured, ought largely to 
better my condition. "Only good pay will 
induce the soldiers to remain with the colors,"^ 
said Washington. "Patriotism must be rein- 
forced by some hope of recompense."^ Recom- 
pense is, however, not the word. To him who 
does not count the cost of life, the cost of his 
wage should not be counted. It is an enlarge- 
ment of the British conception. The shilling 
of the English and the dollar of the American 

> J. Fabre, oj,. cit.. p. 228. ^ lb., p. 231. 



194 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

soldier j)r(K'('('(l from the saint' fuiidaiiK'ntal 
concern for justice. 

Such an army can he asked to fight only for 
a just cause. The American has no fear of war, 
in a sense he should love it, for he is a fighter 
through and through, hut it shocks at once his 
practical sense and his conception of morality; 
he deems it absurd, and he holds in horror the 
unavowahle reasons which generally determine 
it, and the barbarism which it manifests. lie 
can see a better use for courage and energy 
than that which consists in mutual extermina- 
tion. 

In his eyes war once had its reasons for being, 
and its virtues; it has them no longer. It is 
necessary to young and ignorant peoples, first 
as a means of procuring resources, and then be- 
cause it virilizes them, forms their minds, their 
hearts, their consciences. "It is a temporary 
and preparatory' state and does actively for- 
ward the culture of man." ^ It is the primitive 
and rudimentary expression of a very sound and 
profoundly American principle: "Help yourself; 
don't look to another for helj)." Tlu^ prin(ij)le 
to-day simply finds other modes of ai)plication, 
higher and more fruitful. Our energies have 

' Emersion. Miscellanies: War. 



THE INTERNATIONAL IDEAL 195 

found another field, and give their best results 
in works of peace. 

For to the American peace is nothing less than 
soft and anaemic. It consists in the exercise of 
powers and not in a display of pleasures. Pitts- 
burgh and Philadelphia are not Suburrha or 
Capua. Peace should be the work of the strong; 
peace is the war of man against the forces of 
nature, not the war of man against man. It is 
invention, not destructive daring. It is not the 
heroic effort of a strenuous and exceptional mo- 
ment in which all the powers of life gather them- 
selves together to conquer or die. It is continual, 
incessant, ever-recurring effort, the prolonged 
labor of the factory or the laboratory, the 
heroism of the "toilers," whom President Wil- 
son eulogizes. "The cause of peace is not the 
cause of cowardice."^ 

We might go even further. The cause of 
cowardice is the cause of war; not of those 
who wage it, but of those who let it loose and 
cause others to wage it. In their eyes war is 
a brief and violent effort, the effort of a moment, 
which is expected to exempt the victor from all 
future trouble. War is indolence, the desire to 
live at the expense of others, to take possession 
of and enjoy wealth acquired by others, in- 

'76. 



196 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

stead of creating new weallli l)y his daily toil. 
It is an attempt to reduce the world to slavery, 
to force vanquished peoples to play the part of 
the galley-slave, who, under the threat of the 
lash, or before the open throat of cannon, sweat 
blood and water to make the wealth of their 
opI)ressors. Let us not forget that Germany, 
when letting loose this cataclysm upon the 
world, anticipated a rapid and decisive cam- 
paign of a few weeks or, at most, a few months, 
and that she induced her men to march by the 
promise of a share in the booty, the spolia 
opima of the conquered. She set forth for "the 
fresh and joyful war," moved by the desire of 
an easy and an idle life. The L'nited States, 
with their love of activity and a rugged life, 
can have only thorough contempt for so de- 
grading a conception. 

In principle, therefore, America recoils from 
war. Hut in fact, when she simvs in it tlie sinr 
(pui tion of peace, she throws herself iiito it 
body and soul. She can fight when it is neces- 
sary. And when is it necessary ? When liberty 
is at stake — her own liberty or that of the world. 
She refuses wars of conquest; with all her 
power she upholds wars of liberation. 

She refuses wars of conquest. Conquest is 



THE INTERNATIONAL IDEAL 197 

imbecile and vain. Wills cannot be annexed. 
"In no case do we desire territorial possessions 
which do not directly form one body with our 
national domain, and we nowhere desire a 
domain acquired bj'' criminal aggression."^ In 
fact, America has never sought extension ex- 
cept as a result of covenanted agreements. A 
man becomes an American by his free will and 
choice; he does not become one by constraint. 

But America upholds wars of liberation. 
Every war which she has undertaken has been 
in her mind a war of independence, even those 
which a European would be inclined to look 
upon with a different eye. The American "is 
not a hypocrite when he maintains that he 
went to Cuba in the interest of the Cubans, or 
occupied Panama as the 'attorney of human- 
ity. 2 

In any case, even if one may argue the correct- 
ness of this character with regard to an expedi- 
tion like that to the Philippines, it is evidently 
clear when one contemplates the three "great 
wars" undertaken by the young republic: the 
War of Independence, the War of Secession, and 
lastly, its present participation in the World 
War. 

' President Harrison, quoted in Les £,tats-Unis ct la France. Address 
by Morton Fullerlon, p. 195. 
» 76., p. 188. 



198 THK PKOPLK OF ACTION 

The war against England was the uprising 
of the national conscience, the protest of Right 
against Might. America was constrained to 
fight; she accepted l)iit did not provoke war. 
She had but one aim in view: to enfranchise 
herself, not to dominate. "Compelled to take 
up arms, wc are drcamiyig neither of glory nor 
eonquest, hut we will defend, even to death, our 
possessions and our liberties, inherited from 
our fathers."' Notwithstanding appearances, 
the United States did not declare war. They 
endured it, for the oppression of one people by 
another constitutes a state of war, a permanent 
war. The English did not deceive themselves 
in the matter. Fox and his friends called the 
American cause "the cause of liberty."^ At the 
head of the movement whom do we find .^ 
Generals? No, lawyers. "The revolutionary 
tocsin was sounded by lawyers."^ The head 
of the army was before the war a surveyor and 
a wealthy landed proprietor. A new Cincin- 
natus, his dreams were all of returning to till 
his fields; he was the most fervent advocate of 
peace and disarmament. In his farewell ad- 
dress to his arm}' he gave "his most affection- 
ate greetings to the brave men who have assured 

' J. Fabrc, op. cil., p. 16. ' J. Fabrc, op. cit., p. 18. 

* Lavisse et Rambaud, Huloire ghihaU, SW, 536. 



THE IxNTERNATIONAL IDEAL 199 

to their fellow citizens the enjoyment of the 
most precious blessings, liberty and peace.^'^ 
In its motives, its spirit, its results, the War 
of Independence was eminently a war of 
peace. 

Not less so was the War of Secession. We 
have not space here to discuss the very power- 
ful economic interests that divided the liberal 
North from the slaveholding South, but we 
must not lose sight of the guiding thread of all 
American politics, that is to say, that it always 
finds its true interest on the side of justice, never 
on the side of violence. When we analyze the 
concept of justice we find it is in fact nothing 
other than a reconciliation, and consequently 
an inclusion of legitimate interests. It wills 
liberty for all and not for the few. It would 
have been unthinkable that an America en- 
franchised from foreign domination should per- 
mit and perpetuate at home a system of in- 
ternal domination. She owed it to herself to 
uproot the last vestiges of oppression from her 
soil. "No more slave States and no more slave 
territory," was the watchword. If the States 
desired to be upon a footing of equality in their 
mutual relations, it was first of all necessary 
that there should be no caste among them, no 

' J. P'abrf, op. cit. 



200 THE TEOPLK OF ACTION 

subjects, hut simply citizens enjoying the same 
rights. The maintenance of shivery upon any 
part of her territory wouKl have brought about 
the dissohition of the I nion: secession. This 
idea was expressed by Hale when offering him- 
self as candidate for the presidency: "Slavery 
is sectional, liberty is national; the general 
government should separate itself from slavery 
and exercise its constitutional influence on the 
side of liberty." Either xVmerica is a democracy 
or there is no America. 

Now, it is precisely in the same terms that 
the question, enlarged but identical, is to-day 
possible for her and for the world. Germany 
does not fear America strong, but America free. 
She would perfectly well have come to terms 
with an American autocracy, with an American 
czarism, if the exi)ression were not a contradic- 
tion in terms. She would easily have con- 
cluded a holy aUiance, or, if you please, a cartel, 
a sharing of world-domination with an empire 
overseas. She would thus have carried out 
her vast plan of universal subjugation. But 
she could not, without disowning herself, toler- 
ate a great centre of in(lej)endence on the other 
side of the Atlantic. H she had carried out her 
plan of European hegemony, we should soon 
have witnessed a formidable clash betwcxjn 



THE INTERNATIONAL IDEAL 201 

two continents, the Old Continent a serfdom, 
the New Continent free. 

America warded off the blow by anticipating 
it. It was she who could not tolerate the con- 
stitution of a predatory empire making all 
Europe and at least a part of Asia the soldier of 
the Kaiser. Therefore she must lead Germany 
to liberty in spite of herself as she had led the 
Southern States thither during the War of 
Secession. For this is indubitably her aim: 
to save the world from tyranny by enfranchising 
the tyrant himself. 

She remained, then, faithful to her origin, to 
her past as liberator, to her ideal of peace 
through right, when she went into the war "up 
to her ears." We must say more: on the day 
when she took her place beside the Allied Powers 
she gave to the present war its true character 
as a democratic war, cleansed of every disturb- 
ing element, every secret mental reservation of 
territorial expansion. And by this fact the 
United States dominates the present conflict. 
It represents the only Power that can be at 
the same time judge and client, and remain the 
arbiter even in the form of a combatant. 



202 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

III 

UNTVTRS.VI. PEACE AND THE "SOCIETY OF 
NATIONS" 

The nations ronsidcrc*! a.s moral prrsnn.t. — AutiK-rarics and 
(lonuKTaci«\s. — Thr German Empire and its allies "enemies 
of humanity. "--Iiiterventii)n of America in the World War. 
— She rejjresenl.s "the future of humanity." — Em«'rson's 
"Det'laration of Human Duties." — I're.sident Wilson's 
poliey. — 1. The installation of Hight — Peace "without 
annexations an<l indemnities," hut with "rea<ljustmenLs" 
and "reparations." — 4. The "Scx-iety of Nations." — Inter- 
national justice and world union. — The United States and 
"international duty." — The world made free. — The Ameri- 
can id«'al and the French ideal. 

In what then consists the active internation- 
alisjn of the United States? In extending to 
relations between nations tlio legal principles 
that regulate relations between individuals. 
Public international law .should be faithfully 
modelled upon private national law. 

What says this latter.^ It sets out from a 
fact the existence of human indiridualsj and it 
duplicates it with a law, that of human persons. 
The person has a twofold existence: natural and 
legal. If he had only the first he wotdd be re- 
duced to the condition of a thing, might, like 
other creations of nature, be the object of ag- 
gression and appropriation by the strong. The 
law invests him with an ideal power which 
shelters him from tlie encroachments of force. 



THE INTERNATIONAL IDEAL 203 

Now that which is true of human individuals 
is not yet true of human groups. They have 
the precarious existence of fact, they have not 
the uncontested legal personality which guar- 
antees them against usurpation. There is a 
morahty for men; there is none for peoples. 

Now it is necessary that there should be such 
a morality, and America insists that the legal 
personality of nations be recognized and guar- 
anteed. "America affirms before all else the 
rights of individuals and tlie rights of existing 
states.'' ^ 

Wlience comes it that, in fact, this right is 
denied.'^ From this: that too many nations do 
not yet belong to themselves. How shall they 
mutually respect one another when they cannot 
personally respect even themselves.^ The sole, 
but formidable, obstacle to the "Society of Na- 
tions" is the persistence of autocracies. Be- 
tween democracies, free persons, agreement is 
natural and necessary. Between rival autoc- 
racies it is difficult. Between autocracies and 
democracies it is impossible. This will kill 
that or that will exterminate this. One of the 
two forms must necessarily succumb to the 
other. 

There is, therefore, only one remedy for war: 

* Let EtaU-Unis et la France. Boutroux Address, p. li. 



204 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

uproot the autocracies. It is absurd to claim 
thai war must be eternal; it will (lisai)pcar when 
its cause is made to disappear. The cause is 
known, brou^dit into the light; it is absolutism, 
tlie sic vulo, sir jubco, sit pro rationc voluntas. 
It is the domination of a man over a people 
which leads to the domination of one people 
over another. Then let us put down the man, 
that we may "eliminate this element of arbi- 
trary force and compulsion, and replace it by 
law, equal for all." ' 

Ivct us study the map of the world and define 
the respective situations of (he j)eoples before 
us. They are naturally divided into two groups: 
those that do not belong to themselves, and 
those who belong to themselves, or tend to do 
so. Their respective functions are clear, re- 
sulting from their nature; the first will tend to 
dominate and hold in servitude the second; 
the second to liberate the first by enfranchising 
themselves. There can be no other politics. 
The first duty for the world is to beat the Ger- 
man army, to conquer that Prussia which is an 
army and not a nation. But it is still more 
important so to act that there shall no longer 
be a nation transformed into an army, or sup- 
pressed to give place to an army. *'\\\> have 

' lb., p. iOi. AiKlnss by Mr. David Juync Hill. 



THE INTERNATIONAL IDEAL 205 

no quarrel with the German people,"^ the Ger- 
man people are their own enemy. 

Let us consider the first group. It represents 
the enemy of the right, the enemy of democ- 
racies, "the enemy of humanity." In the per- 
son of the Kaiser, Germany marvellously sym- 
bolizes it, but in varying degrees all the other 
Powers allied with Germany offer the same char- 
acter. Autocratic and dynastic is the Austria 
of the Hapsburgs; autocratic and dynastic the 
Bulgaria of "Czar" Ferdinand; autocratic and 
djnastic the Turkey of Enver Pasha. These 
nations of necessity form a block. And if 
czarist Russia, with its Sturmers and its Pro- 
topapoffs, who betray their allies, did not enter 
this Holy Alliance of Kings against peoples, it 
is because in its inner essence, as President 
Wilson has well shown, the true Russia, the 
deeper Russia, was democratic. The sudden 
and definitive collapse of czarism, which not 
one party arose to defend, not one voice up- 
holds, proves to what a point the power of this 
colossus with feet of clay was at once formidable 
and precarious. 

The world struggle is, therefore, concentrated 
upon the group, united at once geographically 
and politically, of the central Powers of Mittel- 

' President Wilson, Message to Congress, April 2, 1917. 



20G THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

Europa, encircled on all sides by the democ- 
racies that surround it. It can remain what it 
is only by oppression first, and then by the 
total eviction and suppression of the free peo- 
ples. \Ve have seen that its policy in Serbia, 
in Armenia, is a policy of exterjnination; the 
systematic butcherin<( of the population, or at 
the very least the creation of such c(mditions of 
existence that they are reduced to death by 
famine, or to a phj'siolo^ical exhaustion so 
profound that it menaces the race through the 
individual. With hardly more hypocrisy, this 
is the method aj)plie(l by dennany to the in- 
vaded regions of Belgium and France, and by 
the method of wholesale deportations the 
guillotine pines for the deported. Kill or re- 
duce to servitude, kill in order to reduce to 
servitude, this is the j)rogramme whose real- 
ization she pursues coldly and methodically. 
Her object is the total subject ioti of Inimanifi/. 
Not less reasonably the contrary formula should 
be, and has been, that of America: what she 
pursues is the integral realization of humanity. 
Stripfx'd of its military, diplomatic, political, and 
social details, which are only its visible incidents, 
the present struggle reveals, therefore, this start- 
lingly f ragic character: Shall there be a humanity, 
or shdll humanity disappear from the world? 



THE INTERNATIONAL IDEAL 207 

It will be the imperishable honor of the 
United States that even before taking action 
she understood, and she willed. Farther re- 
moved from the scene of carnage, less directly 
affected by events, this great nation did not 
immediately grasp the meaning of the conflict. 
It held it a point of honor to be neutral; but 
the day came when it understood that neu- 
trality in the face of crime is dishonoring, 
dangerous, and impossible. First it protested, 
and protested in the name of the Right and of 
humanity. For a time Germany appeared to 
hesitate, to draw back; she suspended her 
operations of submarine warfare. The United 
States waited and hoped. For a moment they 
thought that peace was possible, a just peace, 
respectful of law, and they asked the belliger- 
ents to state precisely their objects in this war. 
The democracies replied; the autocracies kept 
silence. Finally TartufFe threw off the mask. 
Feeling himself to be lost if he did not go to 
the uttermost extent of crime, he resumed and 
multiplied his submarine activity. At this 
moment, attacked in her interests and in her 
rights, menaced as a nation and as a human 
person, America, by the voice of her President, 
took sides and pronounced her verdict, condemn- 
ing, not Germany, but German autocracy. 



208 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

She said: The world shall he, and shall be 
to the full. All nations have the right to exist- 
ence, the small as well as the great, those which 
arc no more or those which arc not yet, as well 
as those now existing. There shall he a Bel- 
gium, there shall he a Serbia, there shall be a 
Poland. There shall even be a Gernumy, 
where there no longer is one. But there can 
only l)c a Germany anil a world on the day 
when there is no longer a German F^mperor. 

Let no one object that in acting thus America 
acts contrary to her traditional policy, to the 
policy of Washington, of Monroe, that she med- 
dles unduly in the affairs of other peoples. She 
will reply: Where there is despotism there is 
not a people. To do away with the despot is 
to call the people into existence; it is to permit 
other nations to live, by making a place for 
them in the concert of all the nations. The 
Ignited States are working for Germany against 
herself. 

But to be able thus to speak, and to carry 
afiirmations to acts, one must enjoy a privileged 
I)osition. One must be in the right, must have 
might at the service of the right, must be will- 
ing to .set an example. America is all this. 
She is tlic living image of the Right, not of a 
I)latonic Right stated in declarations of prin- 



I 



I 



THE INTERNATIONAL IDEAL 209 

ciples, but of the Right practically written into 
acts; she needs only to say to the fighting peo- 
ples: "Look at me!" She is Might placed, or 
capable of being placed, at the service of Right, 
virtual but inexhaustible Might, a hundred 
milHons of men, of whom she may mobilize ten 
millions; the most formidably equipped indus- 
tries in the world, a power of work and produc- 
tion dizzying to imagine. She dominates the 
belligerents because she is not directly inter- 
ested in the struggle; that is to say, because she 
has no claims of any kind to push. What does 
she ask for? Nothing! She has no war aims; 
her aims are those of peace. 

She stands then apart, and even when she 
intervenes she is truly "above the fray." Long 
ago, indeed, one may say at her very birth, she 
had a presentiment of the part which she would 
one day be called to play. Washington wrote 
to Lafayette that he considered himself a "citi- 
zen of the great republic of humanity," ^ add- 
ing: "I see the human race a great family, 
united by fraternal bonds." ^ Elsewhere he 
wrote prophetically: "We have sown a seed of 
liberty and union that will gradually germinate 
throughout the earth. Some day, on the model 
of the United States of America, will be consti- 

» J. Fabre. op. cit.. p. 185. » lb., p. 185. 



210 THE PEOPLE OE ACTION 

tuied the United States of Europe."'^ During her 
development tlic American nation has become 
more and more conscious of her world mission. 
Emerson saw in her a people marked out to 
preside at the universal enfranchisement: In 
sojne period one country rejjresents more than 
others the sentiments and the future of humanity. 
There is no doubt that America occupies this 
place in the minds of the nations.'^ It })elongs 
to her to be the legislator for all nationalities.^ 
And finally, announcing in advance the very 
aim of President Wilson's ell'orts, he said of the 
United States: They now proceed to the elab- 
oration, not of the Declaration of Rights, but 
of the Declaration of human duties.^ 

The striking reUef in which such statements 
stand out appears in the reading of President 
Wilson's messages and communications. With 
the firmness of their precise and cold legal ac- 
cents, they are the perfect application of the 
ideas of W'ashington and Emerson, the concrete 
affirmation of their idealistic utterances. 

Neutrality is the law between nations as it is, 
we must observe, between individuals; it ex- 
presses respect for the private wall of national 
life. But it cannot exist when there are no 
nations, when one is confronted with "auto- 

' lb.. |). U.i. « Emereon, Etaays. » lb. * lb., p. «90. 



THE INTERNATIONAL IDEAL 211 

cratic governments backed by organized force 
which is controlled wholly by their will, not by 
the will of their people." ^ It is these govern- 
ments, and they alone, that must be brought 
to trial. "We are at the beginning of an age 
in which it will be insisted that the same stand- 
ards of conduct and of responsibility for wrong 
done shall be observed among nations and their 
governments that are observed among the indi- 
vidual citizens of civilized states."^ If they are 
dangerous they must be reduced to impotence; 
that is to say, in the case under consideration, 
put down; if they are guilty they must be tried 
and condemned, not only by the purely moral 
verdict of the universal conscience, but with 
the just rigor of the law. It is a question of 
precise, positive consent to crimes of common 
lawf committed against the human race "in 
the interest of a dynasty and a little group of 
ambitious men." ^ The penalties are provided 
by the codes; they must be applied. Dynasties 
will be overturned, criminal ambitions pun- 
ished, and it will be just. 

In his recent reply to the appeal of the Vati- 
can for a more or less limping peace. President 
Wilson defined the position of the United States 

' President Wilson, Message to Congress, April i, 1917. 
» lb. » lb. 



212 tup: people of action 

more clearly and strongly than ever. After 
having stigmatized tlie crimes of '*the enemy 
of four-fifths of the world,"' he declared with- 
out niiiuiug matters that no peace is possible 
with "an irresj)onsil)le government, which, hav- 
ing secretly planned to dominate the world," 
had not shrunk from carrying its plans into 
effect without respecting treaties or principles, 
long venerated by civilized nations, of inter- 
national law and honor.' It is a government 
without faith or law, a government of "scraps 
of paper," who.se word and signature count for 
nothing, a government with regard to which 
the impartiality which men would fain keej) is 
either lack of comprehension or complicity. 
One no longer treats with a Ilohenzollern. 

What a dilFcrence between these clear and 
cutting statements and the prudent, measured, 
equivocal formulas of the pontifical note ! Head- 
ing the propo.sals of Benedict XV, one cannot 
prevent the secret suspicion that they conceal 
a .snare laid before democracies by Austro-Ger- 
manic autocracy. Voluntarily or not, it would 
seem as if they were inspired by some una- 
vowed desire to reconstruct the Holy Roman- 
Germanic Empire at the expense of free peoples. 
Their accent is rather i)olitical than religious. 

' Reply of President Wilson to the Poi^c. • lb. 



THE INTERNATIONAL IDEAL 213 

On the contrary, we hear an accent, if not 
purely religious, at least inspired by that Puri- 
tan morality so near a neighbor to the Chris- 
tian religion, from the beginning to the end of 
Mr. Wilson's reply. These are not the words 
of a politician, safeguarding interests, negotiat- 
ing a compromise; they are those of a judge 
pronouncing sentence. They show a true im- 
partialit\% that which pronounces against a 
felony, and not that which compounds with it. 
Not for the first time words have been uttered 
from the WTiite House which the world expected 
to hear from the hps of the head of the Catholic 
Church. To the "reasons of the Holy Father," 
by far too exclusively temporal, the successor 
and worthy emulator of Washington has replied 
with the spiritual reasons of the righteous man. 

America will then pursue the accomplishment 
of two duties: one, more immediate, the resto- 
ration of the violated order; the other, more 
distant, the organization of a legal international 
order, which will never again permit such 
crimes. 

The first object should be clearly defined, 
without ambiguity and without passion, but 
also without weakness: "Our motive will not 
be revenge or the victorious assertion of the 



211 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

physical might of the nation, hut only the vin- 
dication of rii^'lit, of human right, of which we 
are only a single (•hami)ion/* ' The victory of 
the Alh'es will he the victory of civilization; it 
should then he the patient and complete reali- 
zation of the Right, not the rude affirmation of 
the fact. 

Realization, not restoration, for what would 
be restored would he precisely the injustice 
which has weighed upon the world. Certainly 
one would not set over against a policy of an- 
nexations a policy of conquest; all desires of 
territorial ambition, whencesoevcr they may 
arise, will be bridled. The rights of peoples 
will be respected. But neither will any one be 
duped again by the artless formula, Peace with- 
out annexations and indemnities. A return to 
the ante-bellum status, the status whence arose 
"iniquitous war,' - would consolidate instead 
of killing despotism. We ought not to consider 
remedies merely because they have a pleasing 
and sonorous sound. ^ 

Peace without annexation, that is a matter 
of course, but on condition that we reconsider 
all annexations sanctioned by the old order. In 
this case (he formula, when analyzed, signifies 

' Prraidcnt Wilson. Messaffr to Conjfrejw. April 2, 1917. 

* President Wilaon, NDle to Hii.s.sia Stilting War Ainu. • 76. 



THE INTERNATIONAL IDEAL 215 

the redrawing of the map of Europe and of the 
world to the end that there may be no nation 
under subjection against its exphcitly asserted 
will. This supposes that certain matters must 
be readjusted in some efScacious way. But 
this "readjustment" is not to be made in accor- 
dance with the political convenience of the vic- 
tor, is not to be based upon strategic considera- 
tions. It will be based upon "very evident 
principles," ^ and not upon interests, however 
apparently legitimate. These principles are 
"that no people must be forced under a sov- 
ereignty under which it does not wish to live; 
no territory must change hands, except for the 
purpose of securing those who inhabit it a fair 
chance of life and liberty."^ The realistic Ameri- 
can conception rests upon the fact, "Existing 
States," and the presumption that the fact is 
in conformity with Right. But this presump- 
tion may be argued and overturned; it does not 
hold against solemnly announced historic claims, 
against collective protests many times renewed. 
Above all, it cannot prevail against the possi- 
bilities of national resurrection and rehabilita- 
tion. 

"Peace without indemnity": again, so be it, 
if the word is understood in its rigid sense of 
» lb. « lb. 



21(; TIIK PEOPLK OF ACTIOX 

irar indemnity, and if ouch nation is left to bear 
tli<' hiinlcM of llu* d(*l)t whicli she contracted 
under this head. In strict justice, to be sure, 
those who were (lra<,'^ed into tlie struggle against 
their will should be indemnified by the aggressor 
for their losses. But, perhaps, all things con- 
sidered, it would not be a bad thing that the 
weight of lliis frightful burden should be felt 
for a tijne, for a long time, by those who j)ar- 
tieipated in this world cataclysm; perhaps it 
would be a salutary warning to too forgetful 
humanity, and to generations to come; perhaps 
indeed it would be well that every one should 
clearly understand that victories of the Right 
are costly, and when they result in the libera- 
tion of the world are never paid too dear. Then, 
accepting the worst, let there be no war indem- 
nity, and may the general impoverishment upon 
which, on their own account, the Ajnericans are 
ready to congratulate themselves, be the great 
lesson of this general conflagration. Let us re- 
Iniild the world, since it has been destroyed; 
let us reconstruct wealth, since it has been dis- 
sipated. 

But, on the other hand. President Wilson in- 
sists upon reparation and every reparation — 
*'payment for manifest wrongs done." ^ Is not 

>/6. 



THE INTERNATIONAL IDEAL 217 

this the fundamental principle of private rights ? 
Is it not the application of the elementary prin- 
ciple laid down in Article 1382 of our Civil 
Code, the one to which appeal is most fre- 
quently made? "Every act of man which 
works damage to another, obliges him to repair 
it by whose fault it has been done." And it is 
not a question of any sort of act; the acts are 
explicitly described, acts of theft, rapine, or 
pillage, done in cold blood, with premeditation, 
with systematic and deliberate method of de- 
struction and devastation. It is not acts of 
war which are under consideration, but perse- 
vering efforts to ruin a people, to attack, not 
armies in their fighting strength, but nations at 
the fountainhead of their life. Not to repair 
damages such as these, not to repair them en- 
tirely, would be to legitimatize and foster crime. 
No, at least there must be restitution, firesides 
rebuilt for those whose roofs have been de- 
stroyed, means of labor, workshops, farms, 
machines, and tools restored to those who have 
been despoiled. Less than this may not be 
required. 

Such are the conditions of a just peace; for 
peoples, liberty, freedom from despotism, unions 
agreed upon according to natural affinity and 
desire; for individuals, indemnification for losses 



218 THE IMIOPLK OF ACTION 

sullVrcd, rfcoiistilulioii of the foriiRT condition 
of tilings. Those are not conditions mini ma ^ 
they are not condilions maxima; they are the 
only conditions possible, because they are the 
only equitable conditions. Justice knows neither 
maxima nor minima. EitluT it is justice or il 
is not. 

But this first object is not enough. It is the 
most urgent — to restore things to their proper 
state, to redress wrongs, and so far as possible 
give to every one his due. But what guarantees 
the world, thus roinade, against a j)ossible re- 
turn of Force .^ What secures existence, es- 
pecially to the small nations whose rights have 
been so outrageously violated ? There is only 
one way to jnaintain and consolidate the work 
built up by justice, and tliat is to create a 
*' Society of Nations." 

This is the essential tiling, without which 
ever^'thing that is done is of no account. "Our 
object now% as then, is to vindicate tlu^ i)riii(i- 
ples of peace and justice in the life of the world 
as against selfish and autocratic power and to 
set up amongst the really free and self-governed 
peoples of the world such a concert of purj)ose 
and of action as will henceforth ensure the ob- 
servance of those principles."' Here again 

• President Wilson, Message to Congress, April i, 1017. 



THE INTERNATIONAL IDEAL 219 

realism resumes its rights, but it is a })road- 
visioned realism which insures the filial triumph 
of the ideal. It is nothing to vanquish if the 
victory must eternally be subject to question. 
What must be vanquished is not a predatory 
people, it is not Germany, it is war itself. 

What we demand are guarantees against war, 
guarantees not territorial; there is no right of 
defense that can prevail against the will of a 
people. We must have legal guarantees rest- 
ing upon legal bonds contracted by all nations, 
and placing international force at the service of 
outraged units. This, again, is the precise 
counterpart of private justice. A people will 
seek redress for crimes of which they are vic- 
tims before the bar of the international tribunal 
as a citizen seeks redress for personal injuries 
before the tribunals of his country. And just 
as the national public force is put at the service 
of the wronged individual, so the international 
public force will rise up against any crime 
against a nation. To this end it is necessary 
and it is enough that the Internation shall be- 
come a reality. 

It will become such because it is a necessity. 
There was a time, and not so long ago, when 
private justice too was illusory or paltry; in the 
early period of our history, at the beginning of 



^2^0 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

Ihi' Middle A^es, was there any justice for the 
poor against the rich, for tlie weak against the 
strong? Was there even, properly speaking, 
justice for tlie j)oor a^'ainst the poor, or the 
weak against tlie weak? Hut as they became 
civilized, and in order to become civilized, peo- 
ple instituted legal guarantees. For fact they 
substituted law, at first precarious, uncertain, 
by degrees more and jnon- fixed and weighty, 
until finally law existed in the same measure as 
society existed. 

The same will inevitably l)e the case in the 
new world which is being prepared. If this war, 
with its horrors, has proved anything, it is that 
the world cannot live without justice. Iniquity 
has engendered ruin at a moment of universal, 
unprecedented i)rosperity; it has wasted money 
by milliards, and slaughtered men by millions. 
Humanity must organize itself against collective 
suicide and ruin. It can do so only under the 
form of the Internation. 

It is the Internation, realized within the lijnits 
of its territory, which has permitted the un- 
heard-of development of the United States of 
America. It is the Internation alone which 
will make possible the resurrection of Euroi)e. 
There must be a "Constitution of the Inited 
States of the World " and an International 



THE INTERNATIONAL IDEAL 221 

Supreme Court. There must be a common 
charter, an organ of union between all the lib- 
erated nations. The modalities are yet to be 
found, but the principle is indisputable, and it 
will triumph over sullen resistance and embit- 
tered prejudice. "And then the freed peoples 
of the world must draw together in some com- 
mon covenant, some genuine and practical co- 
operation that will in effect combine their force 
to secure peace and justice in the dealings of 
nations with one another."^ 

Thus, by the way of "liberty and equality" 
we reach true fraternity, not only between men 
but between peoples. "The brotherhood of 
mankind must no longer be a fair but empty 
phrase; it must be given a structure of force 
and reality."^ It is not simply a question of 
independence but of efficacious mutual aid. It 
must no longer be a question whether we shall 
again w^itness the scandal of a Belgium invaded, 
violated, and bathed in blood by those who had 
themselves guaranteed her neutrality. There 
must never again be a "self-sacrifice for inter- 
national honor." ^ The era of martyrdom must 
be definitively closed, for such heroisms, though 
they be the glory of those who suffer and die by 

* President Wilson, Note to Russia Staling War Aims. - lb. 

* Royce, The Duly of Americans in the Present War, p. 4. 



222 THE PKOPLE OF A( TION 

llu'in, are iho sliaine of liiiinanity that permitted 
tliciii to siifFer and to die. Side l)y side witli 
their Ie«,ntiinate, indispensable indivi(hial lives, 
whieli ill the past had the iiiisfortiiiH* of hein<^' 
narrowly and unintelligently selfish, "the na- 
tions must realize their common life and elfeet 
a \vorkal)le partnership to secure that life 
against the aggression of autocratic and self- 
pleasing power." ^ 

The American ideal in international matters 
is that of "organized peace." In fact America 
borrowed a j)art of the idea from (lermany 
herself, that of the "organization" of which slie 
is so proud, and not without some reason, since 
it has so long enabled her to make head "against 
a whole world of enemies." Hut the United 
States propose to put organization to uses 
diainetrically opposed to hers. They will or- 
ganize peace, will organize humanity, will or- 
ganize the ideal that they may realize it. They 
will kill war. 

"To such a task we dedicate our lives and 
our fortunes, everything that we are and every- 
thing that we have, with the pride of those \vlio 
know that the day has come when America is 

' President Wilson, Nolo to Russia Stating War Aims. 



THE INTERNATIONAL IDEAL 223 

privileged to spend her blood and her might 
for the principles that gave her birth and happi- 
ness and the peace which she has treasured. 
God helping her, she can do no other." ^ 

This conclusion of Mr. Wilson's Message 
raises his country to its true plane and there is 
none higher. To it may be applied, and there 
can be no nobler eulogy, what Michelet said of 
France, that among all European nations she 
was the one that knew how to fight "for dis- 
interested causes that would profit only the 
world." 

America has a sense of what she owes to the 
world, and in this she is in harmony with her- 
seK, with "the principles of which she was born." 
It was her ideal which brought her into being. 
For her, to be just is the first condition of exist- 
ence. To be unjust would be to die. No, she 
could "do no other.'* 

"The day has arrived," not the day of glory 
— for that implies a notion of war and of vic- 
tory by arms — but the day of justice, and of 
justice for all. What President Wilson willed 
for America he also wills for the universe. 
While he was struggling against the greedy and 
menacing power of the trusts, it one day occurred 
to him to say: "What we propose therefore in 

* Id., Message to Congress, April 2, 1917. 



2^4 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

this programme of freedom, is a programme of 
general advantage."' What is he doing to-day 
but extending to all nations those benefits of 
liberty by which until now his countrj- alone 
has been able completely to profit? lie would 
no longer consent to the supremacy of Germany 
— that bad shepherd and tyrant of the world — 
than he would consent to the supremacy of the 
"companies," tliough they might be good ty- 
rants and shepherds devoted to tlie flock. No 
nation should be a flock, no nation should be 
either an instrument or an object of domina- 
tion by another people. Eitlier liberty is for 
all, or it is not liberty. 

But men in general have altogether too artless 
a notion of liberty. .Vmong individuals it runs 
the risk, through competition, of ending in mo- 
nopoly. .\mong nations it tends, by means of 
violence, to constitute a hegemony, and from the 
hegemony of one to the servitude of another 
there is only a step. "Freedom, to-day. is 
something more than being left alone. The 
programme of a government of freedom must 
in these days be positive and not negative 
merely."- What more eloquent commentary 
on these words, which were spoken to Ameri- 
cans only, shall we find than certain passiiges 

> Id., The Snc Fnedom. p. «65. » lb., p. i»4. 



THE IXTERXATIOXAL IDEAL 225 

of tlie Message to Congress or of the Notifica- 
tion to tlie Russian People? 

To sum up, is not this foreseen and com- 
mended *' readjustment" expHcitly affirmed in 
this exphmation of the word "freedom"? 
What is freedom? ''Human freedom consists 
in perfect readjustments of human interests 
and human activities, and human energies."^ 
So to harmonize the free pla}' of forces as to 
obtain the maximum of result, is always the 
same concrete and practical method that is 
applied to America alone, and which is to be 
extended to all humanity. 

This is the basis of the policy of harmony 
and collaboration. Even this must pay, and 
thus far it is truly American; it will pay in pros- 
perity and well-being. This fraternal liberty is 
not a synonym of sterility but of intense pro- 
ductivity. It is a combination of efforts in the 
plenitude of self-possession. The world may 
no more be monopolized than an individual, a 
class, a country. Let each nation be a focus, 
a point of expansion, and here also let demo- 
cratic pluralism oppose itself to autocratic mon- 
ism. 

And all under the a^gis of the law, of the 
bond accepted by all. "Liberty armed with 

> lb., pp. iSl, «82. 



220 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

law."' Such was from the beginning the doc- 
trine, at once binding and emancipating, of 
those who made the United States. "\Miat 
do we find proposed in the writings of the men 
who foun(k"d Ajnerica? To serve the self- 
seeking interests of America? Never: but to 
serve the cause of humanity, to bring liberty to 
the Jiuman race.'' ^ A people is great which, 
like this one, can exist only on the condition of 
excelhng itself. The United States have willed 
and have attempted to realize, with the help 
of all other countries, the country of humanity. 
INIichelet said: "The patrie is a large friend- 
ship." America may add: "Humanity is the 
largest friendship." 

It is impossible not to be struck by the re- 
semblance that exists between the American 
ideal and that of the great French revolution- 
ists. These affinities have more than once 
been noticed. "The Americans," wrote Mr. 
Morton Fullerton, "have become the coadjutors, 
the associates, the continuators of the French 
in their inveterate and rcnuirkable tendency 
always to undertake a world task. The two 
countries have in fact often been called to work 

' lyCs Etah-Vnu el la France. CoufiTt-ntv do I. M. Bulilwin, p. 107. 
» /6.. p. 438. 



THE INTERNATIONAL IDEAL 227 

for other interests than their own. It is a part 
of their pecuhar destiny to liave to Hve, not only 
for themselves but for humanity."^ And he 
adds: *'The only people in the world at the 
present time capable of apprehending some- 
thing of the precise sense of the word * humanity * 
as the French use it, are perhaps those of North 
America."^ 

Nothing is more true. The American busi- 
ness man with his unpolished manners and the 
thoughtful Frenchman with his rare and delicate 
sentiments are, in spite of appearance, the two 
beings in the world best qualified to understand 
one another. Both have the sense of political 
equality, both have the democratic sense, and, 
above all, both have what may be called the 
world sense. 

But they have it very differently. The 
Frenchman is, above all, intellectualistic, he 
moves among general as well as generous ideas, 
he conceives his ideal before he realizes it. The 
American, busy, practical, realizes his idea be- 
fore conceiving it. During long centuries the 
Frenchman has aspired after liberty while sub- 
mitting to servitude, and after breaking his 
chain he has more than once assumed it again, 
and has even forged a new one. The American, 

» 76., Fullerton Lecture, p. 187. » lb., p. 188. 



2^28 Tin: I'KoiM.i: of action 

the moment lie became aware of the yoke, 
shook it off, and fXTceived that he willed liberty 
on the day when he achieved it. Both are 
broadly, deeply human, but the Frenchman was 
alwaj's conscious of being such, and was such 
by instinct, without calculation; while the 
American, powerfully self-interested, sought first 
of all and only to realize himself, and perceived 
that he could not etlect this without liberating 
his fellows. lie arose to the loftiest hunumi- 
tarian conceptions without willing or being 
aware of it, and almost in spite of himself. 

But what matter the roads trodden so long 
as they lead to the same end .^ That which 
these two peoples have in common is the indi- 
vidualisju which alone, in spite of its anarchistic 
aspects, brings it to pass that from self-respect 
one rises to respect for his fellow beings, and 
learns to treat them as equals. With opposite 
temperaments, with difTerent methods, one on 
the plane of thought and the other on the plane 
of action, France and America will be the two 
great emancipating nations, because they are 
the two great idealistic nations. 



CHAPTER V 

AMERICAN IDEALISM 

IDEALISM AND REALISM.— IS THERE AN 
AMERICAN IDEALISM? 

WHAT is idealism ? In what sense may 
one say that American ideahsm exists ? 
To answer these questions is to 
penetrate to the very depths of the American 
soul. Does this people, the "people of action," 
shut itself up in the vigorous but narrow self- 
interest which is generally recognized as its 
single virtue? Or do they not cause to spring 
up from this very realism, perhaps uncon- 
sciously, an idealism of renewed youth ? 



AMERICAN IDEALISM 

There is no American idealism. — The meagrencss of American 
life. — Philosophical empiricism. — Utilitarian religion. — Imi- 
tative art. — Lack of sentimental comprehension. — The 
morals of self-interest. 

We find in the language of philosophy few 
words which express more things, and express 
them more inadequately, than the word "ideal- 

229 



230 THE PEOPLE OE ACTION 

ism." And yet, if the sense wliich it offers to 
the mind is far from clear, tlurc is no mistxiking 
the sentiment which it awakc^ns within us. In 
every domain it ijni)lies tliat, heyond that which 
is and which is had or average, one conceives 
of and desires something wliich shall be sover- 
eignly good, or at least infinitely better. To 
be an idealist is to be not contented with the 
present existence; to feel with regard to the 
world that is, perhaps contempt, in any case 
dissatisfaction, and to aspire to surpass it. 

Consequently, he is not an idealist whose 
great concern is to live, to confine himself within 
the narrow sphere of his practical occupaticjn, 
in the meagreness of material business and purely 
human interests. And if, as is certainly the 
case, this is the simplified but faithful schema 
of existence in the New World, is it really pos- 
sible to speak of /Vmerican idealism ? 

Far from weakening, the objective appears 
to take on greater force if we pass from generali- 
ties to details, and follow the scent of idealism 
through the various domains into which it as- 
sumes to penetrate. There is, first of all, a 
philosophic idealism, which is essentially char- 
acterized by distrust of experience and belief 
in suprasensible realities. This is the idealism 



AMERICAN IDEALISM 231 

of Plato, to whom sensation is only the deceit- 
ful symbol of the idea, and who, over against the 
fluid and inconstant universe of disintegrating 
facts, sets the intelligible world of pure, eternal 
essences. It is that of Descartes, that mathe- 
matical genius who resolved facts into ideas, 
and forced empirical reality, all quivering with 
life and overflowing with wealth, into the cold, 
uniform equation that expresses it; what we 
call reality is an apparent mirage created by the 
imagination, that "mistress of error," and which 
the understanding dissipates, reducing the world 
to be only one great truth. It is finally the 
Kantian idealism, which on one side admits of 
nothing outside of the mind but a froth and 
chaos of sensations, disconnected and formless, 
upon which pure Reason imposes its laws, 
which above all sees in the work of Reason 
herself, and of the science which she constructs, 
nothing but an organized and systematized 
illusion, and places true reality outside of ex- 
perience, outside of the senses, outside even of 
the intelligence, in the inaccessible and super- 
natural world of the thing in itself. 

The feature common to all these doctrines is 
their defiance of facts, of the concrete; the ex- 
ternal world is only a dream, and all reality 
takes refuge in the domain of ideas. Nothing 



232 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

is more ropuf^nant to the realist ic mind of the 
American. lie lias not tlir ])liil()S()phic' head; 
lie lives in direct and permanent contact witli 
the facts which metaphysics removes from his 
road. He lias and he will have no p'neral ideas, 
no rigid and finished concepts. He cannot com- 
prehend the permanence and imjnutahility of 
tlie Platonic es.sences, or of the categories of 
Kant, he wlio li\es in the finctuation, the move- 
ment, the perpetnal renewing of heings and 
things. He is not an "intcllectnal," a "deli- 
cate" j)erson; he is a man of action and of reali- 
zation, a "barbarian." * 

Tliere is also a religious idealism wliicli he is 
incapable of understanding. It is that of the 
strict Christian, the man of contemplation, who 
turns with disgust from the things of this world, 
who flees the ".shameful attachments of the 
world and the flesh"- to lose hun.sclf in ecsta.sy 
and live in God, far from men, freed from all 
the defilements of this "flesh of sin," sei^king 
salvation in .solitude and .self-mortification. The 
a.scetic ideal of the monk in his cell, or his 
Thebaid, the life which, in the words of The 
Imitation, confines itself to "meditation on 

' William Jamr.H. Pragmatism, p. li. 
* Comeille, Polyeucic, \v\. IV, Stvne II. 



AMERICAN IDEALISM 233 

death" — what sense can it have for this people 
of "toilers," whose affections are set upon a 
purely human task? The God of whom they 
think is not a mystical God exacting from his 
creatures acts of sterile adoration, an absentee 
God "in a world in which a God would be su- 
perfluous; from such a world a God could never 
be missed."^ He is a God made for man, who 
works in concert with him, who comes down 
into the arena and struggles at his side. His 
kingdom is of this world. 

As for (Esthetic idealism, it is still more foreign 
than the others to the positive spirit of the 
American. Absorbed in urgent needs, he has 
only tardily and incompletely arrived at art, 
poetry, literature. Art is a luxury, the luxury 
of the refined. It presupposes long leisure, the 
exquisite indifference of a La Fontaine, musing 
in the delicate and lonely landscapes of the 
Ile-de-France, or the austere labor of an Alfred 
de Vigny, shut up in his "ivory tower." One 
must, with Lamartine, "lead his muse to the 
depths of sohtude," and 

''yiake fragrant his heart for its resting-place." 

But how, in this severe daily battle which con- 
stitutes American life, in its shocks and fevers, 

' William James, op. cU., p. 104. 



234 THE PEOPLE OE ACTION 

shall one find the calm retreat necessary to the 
artist? Above all, how, with this love of the 
active life, shall one so shake off the thonsand 
demands of the outer world as to ^nve himself 
to the slow ripening of a masterpiece? How, 
indeed, shall this practical imagination, wholly 
directed toward the creation of mechanical aj)- 
pliances and utilitarian scientific inventions, 
pursue the course of its revery and i)lace its 
ideal in the mere expansion of a state of soul 
which has no other object than itself? 

The American, then, cannot conceive of the 
pure testhetic ideal, "art for art's sake." Nor 
can he nuich more easily conceive of art as a 
means to an end, outside of itself. He is still 
in the period of imitation. His architecture, 
even his paintings, have the stamp of his Eu- 
ropean masters. There is no American school 
of art, and still less is there an artistic genius of 
the race.^ 

' It is solf-ovidrnt thnt the conception thus outlined is that of the 
Amorimn people in general, noressarily leAving out of the question the 
few imliviflual efTort.s whiih winild react against this tendeney. One 
of these is parlieularly interesting. It is that which Mr. Hahlwin in his 
(icnriir Theory of RralU]/ (lOK'il, of which a Fn-nch edition is aUiut to 
appear, has <levelopo<l under the name of Pancali.sm (fmm jxin, all. ami 
Jtn/o.f, beautiful), a very new and oripnal theory which .s<>«-ks to reconcile 
intellect ualism and prapmatism by a synthesis estahlishing the hegemony 
of the lesthetic. AeeonlinR to the author this is done by addrr.ssing 
onesj'lf to the synthetic domain of art, in which American life will .se<-k 
and has already sought to escape fnmi the encroachments of utilitarian- 
ism See on this subje<t M. Ijilandc's article on "Pancalism," Revue 
phiiosophiquf, \5 decembre 1915. 



AMERICAN IDEALISM 235 

Can we at least find in the United States 
traces of what may be called sentimental ideal- 
ism ? More profoundly human than any other, 
this nation responds to that imperious need of 
affection which is the privilege of no one peo- 
ple, the need of loving and still more of being 
loved. Passion is of no time and no country. 

But no, here again we meet with disappoint- 
ment. The fevers of passion, its wild hopes, 
its crushing despairs, all that antiquity and 
Europe have sung, awaken few echoes in the 
United States. Of all our poets Huret found 
Musset to be the least understood by American 
girls, and doubtless also by their brothers. It 
would seem that the American is too much in 
haste to act to be able to feel profoundly. 
Those "reasons of the heart of which the reason 
knows nothing" neither move nor disturb him; 
he is too cold and reasonable, perhaps, also too 
healthy, for that. The infinite delicacy of a 
Sully-Prudhomme is as foreign to him as the 
sickly refinement of a Beaudelaire, and from 
this point of view, at least, all our poetic and 
sentimental literature is to him a dead letter. 

Finally, even to moral idealism he seems in- 
accessible. The idea of sacrifice, of the gift of 
oneself, taken literally, is not an American idea. 
He deems it absurd and ahiwst revolting. To 



23G THE PEOI»LE OF ACTION 

sacTifice oneself for nol/iiiuj, for an al)slra('ti()n, 
a pure idea, is nonsense to him. lie will readily 
admit that it is lo his interest to he virtuous; 
but that virtue has a value, in itself eonsidered, 
he would find it diflicult to concede. He does 
not understand disinterestedness, pure and sim- 
ple, self-abnegation; we may go further and say 
that his conscience |)rotests against it, and i)ro- 
tests in the name of Right. Why should I subor- 
dinate my.self to another? Why should I con- 
sider his interest before my own ? Wliy, if he 
is weak, should I sciuander myself for his suc- 
cor? Why, if he is incapable, should I try to 
save a worthless num ? Let us be just, not 
charitable. Charity is a weakness. The Amer- 
ican has too strong and too i)owerful a person- 
ality to consent to abdicate it in the name of a 
so-called duty. Is it not his true duty to be 
himself ? 

Hut in this case where is idealism? Wliere 
is the ideal? We have lo do with a people of 
rare energy, ind()mital)le, but of .short and con- 
tracted views. Their eyes are not lifted to the 
heavens, to a star. They keep them bent upon 
the earth. They j)erform their task manfully, 
but they do not surpa.ss themselves, and the 
property of ideahsm, as we have said, is to sur- 



AMERICAN IDEALISM 237 

pass oneself. The American is a realist. He is 
the most daring and powerful of realists, but 
he is only this. 

II 

AMERICAN IDEALISM 

There is an American idealism. — Idealism of action, not of 
thought. — Philosophy of life and of creation. — Religion of 
humanity and salv^ation by effort. — Militant art. — Strong 
sensibility against weak sensibility. — The morals of will and 
of work. — Fundamental tendency: to "free energies" in 
order to "liberate values." 

Conclusion: The practical ideal of actuality substituted for 
the intellectual ideal of culture. 

The judgment appears to be without appeal, 
and yet, in the course of our work, we have 
brought forward numerous, and it seems to us, 
incontestable proofs of the idealistic tendencies 
of the American soul. We have seen this ideal- 
ism at work, and, so to speak, in action. 

Is not here the key to the problem.^ Ameri- 
can idealism is not a theoretic idealism, con- 
ceived and formidated; it is a practical idealism 
which springs from action itself. It is wholly 
in the creative impulse. 

From this point of view all becomes clear. 
The American does not lay out in advance 
what he afterward endeavors to carry out. 



238 TllK 1M:0PLK OK ACTION 

Ho (l(X\s not, like IMalu, coiislruct an idi'al ro- 
puhlic on paper, on wliicli arclu'typr In- afU-r- 
ward tries, vainly indciMl, to inodc^l existing so- 
ciety. No, he begins hy roniiiiiL,' a real n'j)iil)lic, 
which goes on as it can, not without jt rks, an«l 
from which emanates in fact, and not in idea, 
the ideal wliich it potentially contained, and 
which passes into act as the rcpuhlic develops. 
An ideal whicli, in fad, is not mere "Platonic," 
which is not a mere representation, doubtless 
perfect and adorned with all the virtncs, like 
Roland's mare, and, like her, havin",' only the 
one fault of being dead, and indeed of having 
been still-born; an ideal which, on the con- 
trary, has as many defects as you please, with 
tlu' one good (luldity — which counts for some- 
thing — of being alive and even life-giving, an 
ideal which makes a people live, and which per- 
haps will to-morrow revive the human race. 

If, l)y the light of this guiding thought, we 
survey anew each department of human activity 
in which idealism mii^ht and ought to be found, 
we shall perceivi* the original and fruitful part 
which American idealism has j)lay(Hl in it. 

First, an essentially phil()soj)hical part. Phi- 
losophy, like the humanity of which she is only 
a well-cunsidcrcd expression, is at one of I he 



AMERICAN IDEALISM 239 

great turning-points of history. She feels that 
the absolute is escaping her grasp, and that in 
making every effort to define it she is running 
the risk of clasping only a shadow. She must 
more and more draw near to the concrete, to 
life. It is surely the merit of philosophy to 
make the life that we are actually living appear 
real and serious.^ If to this end she must 
exorcise the absolute, must exorcise the great 
destroyer of the only life which we feel within 
us,^ so much the worse for the absolute. If 
even pure intellectualism have some little to 
suffer by it, so much the worse for intellectual- 
ism. It is for it to abandon whatever may 
have been outworn or excessive in its preten- 
sions. Life was not made for thought; thought 
should adapt and suit itself to life. The suc- 
cess of pragmatism, of Bergsonianism (a phi- 
losophy from many points of view very Ameri- 
can), is, above all things, due to this profound 
reason. "The great thing in philosophy is not 
logic but impassioned vision,"^ the vision of this 
very life, this "strenuous life," of which Mr. 
Roosevelt speaks, and which the American lives. 
In this realism there is no annihilation, no 
destruction, of the ideal, but its renewal and re- 
vitalizing. There will no longer be an intellec- 

' William James. « Id. * Id. 



240 THE PEOPLE OF ACTION 

tual world suspended above a sensible worhj; 
llie ideal will not be superimposed upon the 
real Ifi a more or less artifieial manner; it will 
express nothing other than the urge of reality 
itself. The ideal will be the free and joyful 
realization of life as a whole; we shall not live 
for an ideal, the ideal will make one body with 
life; it will be life with its pliabihty, its enthu- 
siasm, its radiance. 

In its turn religious ich'ali.'im is revived as it 
approaches the real, the true world. The celes- 
tial country plunges its roots into the most pro- 
found depths of the terrestrial country. As a 
result, the spiritual life becomes a function of 
the material life; its principal duty is to regulate 
and administer it, to "give pasture" to man. 
"I have often reflected that there is a very 
human order in the j)etiti()ns in our Lord's 
Prayer. For we pray first of all, 'Give us this 
day our daily bread,' knowing that it is useless 
to pray for spiritual graces on an emj)ty stom- 
ach, and that the amount of wages we get, the 
kind of clothes we wear, the kind of food we 
can afford to buy is fundamental to everything 
else."^ Far from lowering tlie religious ideal, 
such a realism exalts it, gives it rights of citi- 

• Woodrow Wilson, The Sew Fretdom, p. 1&7. 



AMERICAN IDEALISM 241 

zenship among men. It no longer incurs the 
severe reproach which an American author 
justly directed against the monachal and con- 
templative conception: "Religion is like a sleep- 
walker, to whom actual things are blank."* 
It is no longer a question of losing oneself in 
God, with the mystic, seeking salvation in in- 
ward purification. God should come down to 
men, and that later, in a future life, he may be 
better, should begin by rendering him less 
wretched here below. "Whatever the God of 
heaven and earth is, he can surely be no gen- 
tleman. His menial services are needed in the 
dust of our human trials."^ The way of sal- 
vation is happiness, merited happiness, happi- 
ness by means of justice, of course, but the 
prosperity for which God works side by side 
with men, and, we are almost bold to say, 
treating him as equal to equal. If he has a credit 
against us we have also one to present to him. 
We owe him labor and he owes us its reward. 

The ideal value of religion, then, is to bring 
strength to life, to intensify effort, to augment 
the confidence of the "robust." It is to give 
tone to the individual. 

The same is the case with art. No doubt 



' Mdrrison J. Swift, quoted by William James, Pragmatism, p. 34. 
» lb., p. li. 



242 THE PEOPLE OE ACTION 

(lie Ajiu'rican is ikU naturally an artist; abuve 
all, lit* is not one according? to the accepted 
formula, he admits no arl llial is foreif^n to life. 
Put he draws from life itself the >()uud of a 
whisper and a flame of wliicli only youthful 
peoples know the secret. '^Plial in plastic art 
he Jiiay he more imitali\c than (jri^nnal, not- 
withstandin*^' the many talents that he has re- 
vealed, thai especially in architecture he is 
hicking in rescrx'c and in taste, seeks for effect, 
and at times confuses the striking with the 
beautiful, is possible. But he brings to litera- 
ture, with the humor which is the special gift 
of certain of his authors, a freshness of expres- 
sion and an ardor which is only too seldom 
found in our lands of culture and decorum. 

Tx^t any one read a page of Emerson, a poem 
of Longfellow or Walt Whitman, or even an 
article by Williajn James, and lie is first of all 
struck by the energj' which emanates from 
these writings, at once pulsating and sustained. 
There is a certain air of relation.ship between 
all these works, which yet are of such varied in- 
spirations. All give the same impression of 
energy, of ea.sy, happy, unj^remeditated move- 
ment. They have virility, they have savor. 

But when one reads further one perceives 



AMERICAN IDEALISM 243 

that their common characteristic is the lyrical 
note, the overflowing of personality, the effu- 
sion of a rich and vernal nature, spontaneous 
and abundant. The American is lyric because 
he has two lyrical qualities, enthusiasm and in- 
dividualit3\ Why should he not be enthusias- 
tic when all space is open to him, when he lives 
in a sort of perpetual fairy -land of creation and 
invention ? What matters it that he is con- 
cerned with material productions and that the 
smoke of factories veils the azure of the skies ? 
There is poetry, if not in the machine, as has 
too often been said, at least in the mind of him 
who finds or builds it, in the hand of him who 
works it, in the impulse which puts all these 
forces in action — a somewhat unskilled, wild 
poetry which goes well with his temperament. 
As for his individuality, it lets itself go with 
the same ardor whether he writes or reads or 
carries on a business. His literature is a litera- 
ture of action. It will not complacently set 
forth states of the soul, or analyze characters. 
To recur to examples already given, it will pro- 
duce neither a La Fontaine nor a Vigny, neither 
the shrewd wit of the "Bonhomme" nor the 
sad and lofty serenity of the author of the 
Destinies. Both of these, so different to us, 
are in relation to it too complex and too self- 



244 THE PKoriJ-: of action 

conlaiiiod. Tlicy iiarralr tlicniscKcs, wliiK' it 
gives itself. Hiil while thus surrendering^ itself 
entirely, it seeks to iuonc its reader and carry 
him along with itself, lo work a change in him, 
to excite his cFiergies. The American writes 
as he fights; he is a militant. His muse (Joes 
not hold a lyre in her hand; she brandishes a 
swurd while she blows a trumjx't. 

Hut it must be clearly recognized that this 
active idealism can never be a sentimental ideal- 
ism. Even in art it finds, though unawares to 
itself, an instrunuMit; in sentiment it meets only 
an obstacle. The American understands little 
of passion anil fondness; if he did understand 
them lie would be inclined to fight them. Sen- 
timent weakens, undennines energy, or turns it 
aside. The fond are fastidious, the fastidious 
are impot(Mit. They are laggards on the high- 
way, and the Ajnerican does not lag. 

A sununary judgjuent, of which, however, 
one must not think too slightingly. Lamartine 
was equally severe upon Mus.set, "a young man 
with a heart of wax," and did not Sully-Prud- 
homme make the melancholy avowal of his 
own impotence when he wrote: 

*'\h\ voyage, telle est l;i vie 
Pour ceux (|ui n'osenl (jiie rever"? 



AMERICAN IDEALISM 245 

Yet we must understand one another. To 
object to the sentimentality, the romantic vague- 
ness of soul, the half-sincere, half-artificial ago- 
nies of Musset's Nuits, is not to condemn every 
sort of sentiment, and we have seen that there 
are sentiments that go straight to the American 
heart, those that reach it through the reason 
and the conscience. Take, for example, the 
German crimes against Belgium, or — apart from 
the interests directly at stake — the outrage 
against women and children in the sinking of 
the Lusitania. The American is easily impres- 
sionable, but he is not affected by the same 
things as the Englishman, and especially the 
Frenchman. He has that generosity of the 
righteous man which refuses to admit of any 
attack upon the right, or upon human person- 
ality. If he has a passion it is the passion for 
liberty and law, a simple, healthy, one may al- 
most say an impersonal, passion. Wliat he 
knows nothing of is amorous passion, with its 
ardors and its agitations, as much physiological 
as psychological, in which the senses and the 
imagination create a mirage and sometimes a 
frenzy. He does not lose himself in yearnings 
and ecstasies. He feels only what he can un- 
derstand. Sentiment is for him something vig- 
orous, healthy, and strong. 



246 THE PKOPLK OF ACTION 

I'iiwilK', may we say of Aiiiciicaji morals (lial 
they (letennincdly }){inisli tlic i(|«*al ? Do tlicy 
dra^ llu'insclves alon^ tlie shallows of a paltry 
utilitarianism in which the iiidividiial pursues 
only tlu' satisfaction of his individual desires? 
If this he so, how are we to understand thai the 
Vnited States, throughout all their history, 
and to-day more tlian ever, have supported 
only just causes, have always been soldiers of 
the Ri«,dit ? 

I'n(|uestional)ly the American is self-intcresti <1 
so far as the will to develoj) his individuality to 
the highest degree constitutes what is called 
self-interest. Conscious of his worth, assured 
tlial he is a power, he proposes to sacrifice 
nothing of liimself, not one of all the jiossihili- 
ties, eager to become actualities, which he finds 
within himself, and which are liijnself. There- 
fore he does not consent that his will to j)()wcr 
sliall be shackled or lijnited. He is hard upon 
the weak, for weakness is the sign either of in- 
tellectual uKMliocrity or moral cowardice, and 
nothing really useful can be done for mediocrity, 
and nothing beneficial for the cowardly. Pity, 
charity, genllen<\ss, liumility these Christian 
virtues seem lo him lo be faults, and ahuost 
vices. They do no good to those who profit by 
them, they work harm lo thos(^ who practise 
them, for I hey i)re\'eiit his being himself. 



AMERICAN IDEALISM 247 

There is another Christianity, less steeped in 
tenderness, by no means drowned in tears, 
which is active, fruitful. It does not content 
itself with saying "Peace to men of good-will," 
for it is not enough that the intention he pure, 
it is necessary that activity be real, sustained, 
and lead to something. This Christianity is 
more likely to say: "Peace to men of strong 
wills." It does not preach charity, that incom- 
plete and belittled justice which presupposes and 
sanctions inecjuality among men; it demands 
the right, that total justice, which is possible 
only among equals. 

The moral ideal of the American, then, is the 
legal ideal, absolute respect for the human per- 
son. It is a respect which does not go so far 
as to treat him as an end, but which absolutely 
forbids treating him as a means. It is not for 
me to make you the end of my effort, any more 
than to ask you to make me the end of yours; 
each should work for his own well-being, each 
should live his own life and not the life of others. 
Indeed there is something degrading in expect- 
ing another to live in your place and stead, and 
to make morality the justification of parasitism. 
This is the condemnation of the usual philan- 
thropy, of ill-understood hujnanity. 

But, on the other hand, on no account and 
upon no pretext should a man be the instru- 



248 THE PKOPLi: OF A( TIOX 

nu'iit of aiiotlicr man, or a people llie slaves 
of another people. The in(li\i<liial must be 
freed, and the world must ix' t'r«'ed. Each one 
must be enabled to enter (lie lists and tliere 
take his chance. All oppressions and all tyran- 
nies must be done away with: internal tyrannies 
of the trusts, money powers stifling indixidual 
initiatives, or governments by autocrats, politi- 
cal powers stifling popular movements and pro- 
tests; external tyrannies of military nations, 
whose wild and unwliolesome dreams of universal 
hegemony, if they sliould ever take form, would 
make the whole world the thing of one indi- 
vidual and the tomb of liberty. Morality, the 
whole of morality, is to break chains, and every 
chain. Let us apply to the entire human race, 
as President Wilson himself did, what he de- 
manded for his country: "Only the emaneij)a- 
tion, the freeing and heartening of the vital 
energies of all the i)eople will redeem us."' 
And again: "We have got to set the energ\' and 
the initiative of this great people absolutely 
free." ^ 

Morality, then, has not charity for its end; 
a morality of charity is a morality of slaves. 
It does not give more hapi)iness to man — that is 
not its business — but it ])rocures for him, through 

« Woodrow Wilson. The Snr Freedom, p. «88. • lb., p. i'ii. 



AMERICAN IDEALISM 249 

universal enfranchisement, the conditions of a 
happy hfe. Its true end is "to set energies en- 
tirely free in order fully to release values."^ 

\'alue, thus, in the eyes of the American, is 
the only thing that counts; and this is why his 
moral conceptions seem to us on certain points 
so narrow, not to say harsh, and on others so 
large. This is why, setting out from self- 
interest, which to him signifies the right of 
value, and of every value, to assert itself, it 
finally ends in the legal society of nations, the 
necessary condition and indispensable warrant 
of such an assertion. The moral ideal is the 
individualistic ideal. 

Here, then, we may conclude, there is an 
American idealism, and we know both what it 
is not and what it is. 

It is not an intellectual ideal, it is not an ideal 
of culture, it is a practical ideal, an ideal of 
realization. It is not the ideal of yesterday, 
such as was conceived by European thought. 
It is the ideal of to-morrow, such as is willed 
by American action. Far from disdaining real- 
ity, the American is at once inspired by it and 
defies it. "The world is a real adv^ture with 

' Izoulct, Introduction to the French translation of The New Freedom, 
p. 7. 



250 TIIK PKOI^LK OF ACTION 

real danger."* Wc have ncitlicr llic ri^'lil nor 
tlio j)()\v(T to stand aloof from it, for in it and 
by it wc livr. We cannot escape its enil)raee. 
15 ut we are not subject to its exigencies, and it 
is for us to modify it by our will. It is not a 
world made once for all, a ready-made world; 
it is not even a world self-made, mechanically, 
by virtue of imnuitable laws upon which we 
have no hold. In reality it is we who are making 
it, at least so far as it concerns us, we who turn 
its necessity in the direction of our desires. 
This is our ideal, and it is one with our task. 
"If we must accept our destiny we are none the 
less constrained to assert the liberty and the 
importance of the individual, tlic grandeur of 
duty, the power of character." - Our j)art is 
not to accept but to master the world. 

And this is a grc^at ])arl, and moral, for it 
finally estaldishes the triumi)li of mind over 
matter. It is neither resignation nor revolt, 
it is the well-understood and valiantly accepted 
struggle of man against the Faiiim. It is ''ad- 
venture" and "risk" indeed, without ignorance 
as without fear of "danger." A people who 
with such alacrity accepts it is indeed an ideal- 
istic people. They do not clearly define to 

' Willinni .Inmos. Pragmatism, p. 290. 
' EiiHTMin, The Conduct of Life: Fate. 



AMERICAN IDEALISM 251 

themselves their ideals; they do better, they 
hve them. 

"The American ideal is not that of the in- 
tellectual vision but of the practical life. It is 
certainly not, as is sometimes asserted, an ideal 
in the material order, great, costly, unspiritual. 
It is moral and not material; its desire is for 
that which is just: liberty, equality, fraternity 
in the social and moral order." ^ 

' Lea Etais-Unis et la France. Conference de M. Baldwin, pp. 168, 169. 



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